Potter Twin's & The Chamber Of Secrets (Book 2)
by OWENSENJUYUKIKAYUGAUCHIHA
Summary: The Second Adventure of Harry & Rose Potter.
1. Chapter 1

"Haven't I told you both to do something with those damned owls!" Uncle Vernon yelled at Harry and me.

"What do you expect?" Harry asked.

"They never get to fly!" I told him.

"I don't care about the bloody owls!" he yelled. "Just shut them up!"

I walked over to Icarus and Harry went over to Hedwig. We both gave the owls treats in their cages to keep them quite while we went down for breakfast.

When we arrived in the kitchen, breakfast was already made and our aunt, uncle, and cousin all sat around the table.

When we sat down, I grabbed some bacon to eat.

Today was our birthday, we were turning twelve, not that I actually expected them to remember.

"I want more bacon now!" Dudley said as he watched me eat.

"Pass the pan over Harry," Aunt Petunia said as my brother took a piece.

"Give it, Potter!" Dudley said when Harry didn't immediately pass the food.

"You forgot the magic word," Harry mumbled.

Then everything went silent, but only for a moment. The Dursleys gasped when they finally realized what he had said.

"WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT USING THE 'M' WORD IN THIS HOUSE!" Uncle Vernon roared.

"But I meant please-" Harry explained.

"DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT IN THIS HOUSEHOLD!"

All summer long the Dursleys have been treating us like this. I guess that I somewhat deserve it because of the many empty threats that I have made to Dudley. Whenever he tries to take something from me, I always start saying things like 'Hocus Pocus' and he goes running for cover.

But, that wasn't the only reason that they have been treating us like this. They know that we have just come back from our first year of Hogwarts, or what they call - 'training for freaks.' I couldn't wait to go back to Hogwarts. After all, that is where Harry and I belonged. All summer we have been looking forward to the first of September just to return to the castle.

I grabbed a piece of toast and spread some butter on it, thinking about the year before. It was hard to believe that just one year ago, Hagrid burst into the shack that we were hiding in and told us that we were wizards and witches.

"Today is an important day," Uncle Vernon smiled.

I dropped my toast and Harry and I looked at each other, shock on each of our faces. Did he really remember?

"Maybe the biggest day of my career!" he went on.

Of course. He had been talking about this for the longest time now. Apparently a man and his wife were coming over to sell some drills to Uncle Vernon's company.

"Let's go over the plan," he said. "Dudley, you'll greet the guests; ask for their coats. Petunia, you'll be in the lounge, welcoming them to our home. Harry and Rose, where will you two be?"

"In our room," Harry said.

"Pretending that we're not here," I finished.

"Exactly!" he said happily.

Once the plan was retold, all of us left the table. For the remainder of the day, we were to stay out of Aunt Petunia's way while she cleaned up. We stayed in our room most of the time, wishing we were elsewhere. Not a single card came from our friends that day. In fact, we hadn't gotten a letter the entire summer.

"Happy birthday, Harry," I smiled as I handed him a card that I made for him.

"Happy birthday," he smiled as he handed me a hand made card.

Every year for as long as I could remember, we had always done this. No one ever remembered our birthday, so we would always come up with something to give the other - normally it was a hand-made card. Last year we couldn't make cards because of Uncle Vernon's determination to keep us away from magic.

I opened up my card and I read it to myself. On the front of the card, it said in big letters, 'Happy Birthday Rose!' and on the inside it said 'I hope you have a magical birthday!' Beside the picture was a photograph of Harry and me standing in front of Hogwarts.

As the day went on, we both decided to go outside. Well, not to mention that Aunt Petunia wanted us out of the house.

"I know what today is," Dudley said coming up to us.

"Congratulations," I said sarcastically. "You've finally learned the days of the week!"

"Just when we thought there was no hope!" Harry muttered.

"It's your birthday today," he said. "Noticed that you didn't get anything from your friends at that freak school."

We both glared at him, but something else caught my eye. In a bush nearby, I saw two green eyes. Harry looked over at me as if to ask if I saw it too.

"What are you two doing?" Dudley said looking at the bush.

"Trying to figure out the best spell to use if I wanted to set this bush on fire." I lied.

"You're not allowed to, Dad won't allow it!"

"Jiggery pokery," I started, acting like I was performing a spell.

"Hocus pocus!" Harry played along.

"MUM!" our cousin yelled. "THEY'RE DOING YOU-KNOW-WHAT!"

He ran into the house again while Harry and I laughed at how gullible he was. When Aunt Petunia heard that we had been messing with Dudley, knowing that we weren't really doing magic, she made us do some work around the house.

Once we were finished, the Masons were due to be there any minute and everything was set up. The only thing in the way was us.

"Hurry up!" Uncle Vernon rushed us. "They'll be here any minute!"

We had to practically shovel food into our mouth just to appease our uncle. They wanted us to eat before the guests arrived to make sure they wouldn't have to show our faces.

When we finished eating, we had to run up the stairs because the Masons had just arrived.

"Good evening Mr. and Mrs. Mason," I heard Dudley say. "May I take your coats?"

I didn't hear anything else from them when I got to my room room though.

"What is-" Harry said quietly as I entered the room.

Then I saw what he was talking about. Sitting on top of Harry's bed was a small, big green-eyed creature. That must have been what we saw in the bush earlier that day...

"Um...Hello..." Harry said to the creature.

"Hi," I said to it.

"Harry Potter and Rose Potter!" it said in a high pitched voice. "I've been waiting so long to speak to you!"


	2. Chapter 2

"Um..." I said. "Not to be rude, but...who are you?"

"I'm Dobby, the house-elf!" it squeaked. "I've been waiting in here for a while, I hope that you do not mind!"

"Of course not," Harry said as he slowly shut the door.

Dobby stood below us, looking to be about three feet tall. He appeared to be wearing what looked like a ragged pillowcase and had green-eyes the size of tennis balls.

"Well," I said. "I guess that you could sit down and-"

Suddenly, Dobby burst into tears and fell to the floor.

"Rose Potter has offered for me, Dobby, to sit down!" he cried. "I've heard of your greatness Rose Potter, from my young master, but never expected this! To be treated as an equal!"

He sobbed for a few more moments. Harry and I just stood there awkwardly while we waited for him to become calm once more, hoping that he wouldn't alarm the Dursleys downstairs. Once he had calmed down, he looked back up at us.

We slowly ushered Dobby to sit down on my bed so that he could tell us what he had come here for.

"You must not know many decent wizards," Harry mumbled.

Then, without any kind of warning, Dobby jumped up and began to hit himself in the head with the lamp on the table between our two beds.

"STOP!" I whisper-yelled, knowing that the people downstairs had heard him.

"Dobby - please!" Harry begged.

Then the elf stopped hitting himself in the head and turned to us.

"Dobby must punish himself," he told us. "He almost spoke ill of his masters!"

I looked at Harry, wondering if he understood what the elf was talking about, but he looked as confused as I did.

"Masters?" Harry asked.

"The family that Dobby must serve, one that Dobby must serve for life."

"Do they know that you're here?" I asked him.

Dobby shook his head, looking horrified with himself. I half-expected him to start hitting himself.

"Can't you just leave them?" Harry asked.

"Of course not!" Dobby squeaked, his large eyes widening at the thought. "House-elves must be set free by their masters! Only when they present us with clothes we will be free."

"So, what is it that you wanted to tell us?" Harry asked Dobby.

I heard the Dursleys let out a fake laugh from downstairs, obviously sucking up to the guests.

"Harry Potter, sir," he started. "It isn't that easy to tell you..."

"It's okay," I told him. "You can tell us."

Dobby began to shuffle around and then turned to us.

"Harry and Rose Potter must not return to Hogwarts."

There was a silence for a moment, shock coming over us both.

"W-what?" Harry said.

"We have to go back," I told him. "Hogwarts is our home, you don't understand!"

"Harry and Rose Potter must stay here, where they are safe! There are great dangers at Hogwarts!"

"What kind of dangers?" I asked him.

"There is a plan," he said. "One that will happen at Hogwarts this year."

"What plan?" Harry asked.

Dobby stayed silent, and looked as though he would start to cry again, and he held his hands up to his face as if to silence himself.

"Okay..." I said. "You can't tell us..."

"Does this have anything to do with Vold-" Harry said.

Dobby let out a loud squeak, making both of us jump. Apparently it wasn't just witches and wizards that feared the name.

"You-Know-Who, nod if that's right," Harry finished.

It took a moment, but then the elf shook his head.

"No, not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," the elf said while shaking.

Harry and I looked at each other. If it wasn't Voldemort, then who could it be?

"Who then?" we asked.

Dobby sat silently and didn't answer us. Apparently they couldn't tell anyone anything without the master's consent.

"What could possibly be going on at Hogwarts?" I asked.

"After all, Dumbledore is there to protect us anyway," Harry said.

"Albus Dumbledore is a great wizard indeed, Harry Potter," Dobby said. "But even he won't use some of these spells...no decent wizard would..."

Then, once again, he jumped up from the bed and began hitting himself in the head again. I heard the Dursleys downstairs.

"Dudley must have left his television on," Uncle Vernon said.

I heard him coming up the stairs after a few minutes and panicked.

"In the closet," I said.

"Now!" Harry said throwing the doors open and ushering Dobby in the closet quickly.

Just moments afterwards, our uncle appeared at the door.

"What is going on here?" he snarled at us. "One more noise up here and both of you will wish that you were never born!"

Then he slammed the door shut and walked back downstairs. Once we were sure that he was gone, we let Dobby out.

"See what we have to deal with?" Harry said.

"This is exactly why we need Hogwarts!" I told him.

"That's the only place that we have friends..." Harry said.

"Friends that don't even write to Harry and Rose Potter," Dobby said.

"I'm sure that they're just busy-" I said, then realized something. "How did you know that we haven't been getting any letters?"

Dobby began to look at his feet, appearing to be very interested in them.

"Dobby!" Harry said.

"Harry and Rose Potter must not be angry with Dobby," he said as he pulled out a large stack of letters from his clothing.

I could see various letters throughout the stack. There were letters from Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and Neville that I could see in the stack.

Immediately, we both grabbed for the letters, wanting to know what our friends had been writing that we hadn't know about. Dobby jumped out of reach though.

"Harry and Rose Potter will get the letters if they tell Dobby that they will not return to Hogwarts!"

My mouth dropped, knowing that he wasn't going to give up without a fight. But I knew that I would return to Hogwarts, it wasn't even a question.

"Not a chance," I said.

"Then Harry and Rose Potter give me no choice..." he said ran from the room and downstairs.

Both of our eyes widened, knowing that Dobby was going to do something to the Dursleys. Then we bolted from our rooms, attempting to catch Dobby before he could get to anyone.

Then we caught up with him in the kitchen and he was staring at a large bowl of pudding that sat on the counter.

"Dobby, no!" Harry whispered.

"Dobby must do it," Dobby said. "To protect Harry and Rose Potter."

Suddenly the dessert began to levitate and go over towards our aunt and uncle and their guests. We ran towards it, trying not to make noise and stop it at the same time.

Then, it landed on the heads of the Masons, and Mrs. Mason screamed.

Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley glared at us, just noticing our presence as they attempted to help their guests. I turned around and saw Dobby frown as he snapped his fingers and disappeared.

"I'm terribly sorry," Uncle Vernon desperately explained. "The two are very bad around guests!"

Then I realised what they must have thought. They were under the impression that either Harry or myself had done this to the guests.

We were in so much trouble.


	3. Chapter 3

Our punishment was to clean up the pudding that had managed to get onto the floor and I must say that this was not a thrilling job. Uncle Vernon managed to explain to the Masons that the two of us were messed up in the head and were not able to act normally. While the Dursleys explained all of this in the kitchen, we remained in the sitting room and cleaned off what we could on the couch.

A few minutes into our cleaning, a huge barn owl flew into the room carrying a single letter.

"Well, what is it?" Uncle Vernon asked as Harry took the letter from the owl.

"Dear Mr. and Miss Potter," Harry read aloud. "We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was used at your place of residence this evening at twelve minutes past nine. As you know, underage wizards are not permitted to perform spells outside school, and further spellwork on your part may lead to expulsion from said school (Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, Paragraph C). We would also ask you to remember that any magical activity that risks notice by members of the non-magical community (Muggles) is a serious offense under section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy. Enjoy your holidays! Yours sincerely, Mafalda Hopkirk IMPROPER USE OF MAGIC OFFICE Ministry of Magic."

Harry and I looked up at Uncle Vernon who had a crazed look in his eyes.

"You didn't say that you couldn't use magic," he snarled. "Forgot to mention it, eh?"

Well, it was official. We couldn't try to scare them with magic anymore…the rest of the summer was going to be terrible.

"You know what that means, don't you?" he said looking at both of us. "I'm going to lock you both in your room and make sure that you can't come out, because if you try to use magic again then they won't let you into that blasted school anyway, now will they?"

Perfect, I thought. The one thing that I look forward to the most was now going to be taken from me. I wonder what everyone will think when the Potters don't show up at Hogwarts the next year. Will they come looking for us?

The following day we realized that our uncle was planning on sticking to his word. He had someone come by to install bars on the window so we couldn't escape out that way if we had wanted to and he also put a small cat-flap on the door so they could push in some food for us every now and then.

"Are you serious?" I said to him when he was about to shut the door on us. "What if we have to go to the bathroom?"

"Then you will knock on the door and we may considering allowing you to go," Uncle Vernon said evilly.

Then he began to laugh as he slammed the door shut, trapping us in there.

"Great…" Harry muttered. "Now we can't go back to Hogwarts…I guess Dobby got what he wanted after all…"

We both went to our own beds and flopped down onto them and looked up at the ceiling.

Throughout the day we had to stay in our room, doing basically nothing. Towards the middle of the day, when the first morsel of food appeared through the cat-flap, we ran towards to the door and picked up the two bowls of soup that were given to us. When we drained down the broth, we both gave Hedwig and Icarus the remaining vegetables.

I woke up that night with a tapping on the door.

"Knock it off," I said, believing the Dudley was tapping on the door.

Then I turned over on my side and saw through the window something that I had not expected. Someone with red hair, freckles, and a long nose was staring into the room through the barred window.

"Harry!" I said jumping up and shaking him awake. "Harry, wake up! Look!"

When Harry saw what I was freaking out about, he jumped out of his bed and looked through the window.

"Is that Ron?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said as I walked over to the window.

I pulled up the window through the bars so that we could talk to them. When I opened the window, I noticed that they were not alone. Fred and George were with him and they were driving what appeared to be an old, flying car.

"How's it going, Potters?" George asked us.

"What's going on?" I asked all of them. "What are you all doing here?"

"We came to see what was going on with the two of you," Ron said. "Neither of you have been responding to any of my letters. Hermione wrote me saying that you weren't talking to her too."

"Heard you two were using magic in front of Muggles-" Fred said.

"Never thought of the two of you as rebels," George said.

"It wasn't us! Wait, how did you-?" Harry asked.

"Dad works for the Ministry," Ron said. "Why were you using magic outside of school, you know that you're not supposed to."

"Um…" I said pointing to their car. "What do you call that then?"

"We're borrowing this from Dad," George said.

"It doesn't count because we didn't enchant it," Fred explained looking pleased with himself.

I heard Uncle Vernon and Dudley snoring further into the house and then thought of something.

"Wait, why are you all here anyway?" I asked.

"We're here to get you out," Ron said. "You're going to come with us for the rest of the summer."

Suddenly, there was hope. Not only would we get out of the Dursleys' house for the rest of the summer, we would be able to go back to Hogwarts after all!

"How are you going to do that?" Harry asked. "You can't use magic…"

"We don't need to use magic-" George said.

"Never underestimate the power of the Weasleys," Fred smiled deviously at us.

They threw a rope around the bars and tied them tightly and began to move the car in the opposite direction. With one single pull, the bars were off the door and the Weasleys returned to their spot just outside our windows. The Dursleys didn't hear a thing.

"How are we going to get our stuff though?" I asked them.

Fred and George jumped into the window and onto the floor of our room.

"Where is it?" they asked at once.

"Locked in the cupboard downstairs," Harry and I said together.

"No problem," George smiled as he pulled a small hairpin out of his pocket. "Some wizards think that it's pointless to know this trick, but it comes in handy every now and then."

They picked their way out of the room and ran down the stairs without making a noise. Harry and I rushed around the room to pick up some spare things that we needed to bring too. After a few minutes, Fred and George returned to the room with our stuff.

We put all of our things into the trunk of the car and went to get in the car, and were almost in it, when we heard to loud screeches coming from our room.

"THAT OWL!" Uncle Vernon yelled from his room.

"Icarus and Hedwig!" Harry and I said together.

We both jumped back into the room and grabbed the owls and handed their cages over to Ron, Fred, and George. I jumped back into the car just as our uncle appeared at the doorway and Harry was making his way into the car. Uncle Vernon ran over to Harry and grabbed him by the ankle so that he could pull him back into the house.

"LET GO!" I yelled as all of us pulled Harry into the car.

Finally, Uncle Vernon lost his grip and Harry was in the car. Ron quickly hit the gas on the car and we were off.

"See you next summer!" Harry and I yelled at the Dursleys from the window of the car.

-

"You're telling me that a house elf came to your house-" Fred said.

"And warned you that someone was plotting your death at Hogwarts?" George said.

"Basically," I told them.

On our way to Ron's house, Harry and I told them all what had happened over the summer. They were completely shocked to hear it all.

"House-elves don't normally go anywhere without asking their masters though," Ron said.

"Maybe someone was trying to play a joke on you," Fred said.

"Know anyone with a grudge on the two of you?" George said.

"Malfoy," Harry muttered.

"As in Draco?" George asked.

"Lucius Malfoy's son?" Fred asked.

"The very one," Harry said. "Why?"

"Heard that he was a big supporter of You-Know-Who," Fred said. "Denied it after he disappeared though."

"He claimed that he didn't mean anything that he did," George said. "Not that we believe him or anything."

We drove on for a while, mostly talking about how much of a prick Malfoy was. Then Ron mentioned how he thought that we weren't getting the letters because of the old owl, Errol, that he had.

"Does your dad know that you all are driving this car?" I asked all of them.

"Well…not exactly," Ron explained. "He was at work, so were hoping that he won't notice."

"Where does your dad work?" Harry asked.

"He works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office in the Ministry of Magic," Ron said.

"Yeah, Dad's obsessed with Muggle stuff, the whole garage is filled with them," George said.

Within a few minutes or so, we arrived at the Weasleys house. It was a large, stone home that had so many stories on it looked unnatural - it was held up by magic - and on the front door I saw a large sign that said THE BURROW on it. On the front door sat several different chickens and shoes of all kinds.

"It's wonderful," Harry said.

We all got out of the car and began walking into the house.

"We have to be quiet," Fred said. "We can't let Mum know that we were gone and we'll just act like you two showed up during the night, okay?"

We turned towards the door and I noticed Fred, George, and Ron have a sudden look of fear on their faces. Ahead of us stood Mrs. Weasley, who did not look at all happy with her sons.

"Where have you been?" she snarled at her children. "I've been worried sick!"

"Mum, we're sorry, but we had to go and-"

"I HAD NO IDEA WHERE YOU WERE!" she yelled at her sons. "You could have died! If you were seen, your father could have lost his job! What were you thinking?"

They were all silent, cowering away from their mother. Then she turned to us and we took a few steps back.

"I'm so happy to see the two of you though," she smiled at us. "I have breakfast ready in the kitchen."

When we got into the house and towards the kitchen, I noticed how crammed the house truly was. There were books of all sorts stacked around and a rather odd clock. Instead on numbers there were the names of all of the family members and where their current location was. Most of them were pointing to home.

Mrs. Weasley was there, finishing up with cooking breakfast for her family when we came into the room. She was obviously still furious with her sons, but didn't say much to them.

Then, from down the steps came a small girl with red hair. When she saw the two of us, she stopped in her tracks. Then, she looked at Harry and ran back up the steps.

"That's Ginny," Ron said. "She's been talking about you all summer, Harry."

"She fancies you," George said.

"Probably wants an autograph too," Fred muttered.

Then, with one look from their mother, they returned to their meal without another word. After we were finished with breakfast, I looked up and saw Mrs. Weasley reading a book. On the front of it read _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests_ with a large, moving photograph of a handsome blond hair, blue eyed man on the front of it.

"Who is that?" I asked her.

She let out a gasp, "You don't know who Gilderoy Lockhart is?"

"Oh, here we go…" Fred and George muttered.

Mrs. Weasley shot them a look and then started walking in another direction.

"She fancies him," Ron told us. "Mum practically worships everything that he says."

"He looked like a prick to me…" I muttered.

"Wow, a girl with a brain," Fred said.

"I have a new appreciation for you, Potter," George said.

Apparently, after explaining, I gathered that most girls went crazy over the mere sight of Lockhart. He was supposedly some gorgeous man that girls always went crazy for. I'm not denying that he is an attractive person, he just appeared to be a little into himself, in my opinion.


	4. Chapter 4

Towards the end of the summer break, we finally received our letter from Hogwarts that told us all our supplies. They all came in by owl and we also received a letter from Hermione asking us to meet with her a week after our letters came in to go and by supplies in Diagon Alley. However, we had all found it rather odd that we were required to own 5 different sets of Gilderoy Lockhart books, much to Mrs. Weasley's delight.

Then the day came around that we planned on going shopping and we all stood around the fireplace, waiting to travel by Floo Powder, something that Harry and I had never done.

"Just watch Fred," Ron said as his brother stepped forward.

Fred walked over to his mother and took some glittery powder out of a flowerpot and stepped inside of the fireplace.

When he was in there, he threw the powder down causing the fire to turn green and Fred shouted, "Diagon Alley!" and then disappeared from sight.

"It is very important that you speak clearly!" Mrs. Weasley said.

After a few more people went, Harry went up next. He took a little bit of the Floo Powder and threw it to the ground.

"Diagonally," he said nervously just before vanishing with the green flames.

"Did he just say-?" Mr. Weasley said as his wife nodded.

"I hope he's okay," Mrs. Weasley said as I stepped forward.

I took the Floo Powder into my hands and stepped into the fireplace. When I threw it to the ground, I made sure to say the words loud and clear.

"Diagon Alley!" I shouted.

Then I felt myself spinning around into what seemed like a drain. When I stopped, I fell facedown onto the ground right in front of Fred and George.

"Hello there!" George said.

"Have a nice fall?" Fred asked helping me up.

I laughed and then looked around. I noticed something, or someone, was missing.

"Where's Harry?" I asked them.

They looked at each other and back to me with a confused face expression on.

"Did he go before you?" George asked.

I nodded and they began to look around the general area. After a few minutes, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley appeared.

"Everyone ready to go?" Mr. Weasley smiled at us all.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. Weasley asked looking at all of us.

"We can't find Harry," I told them. "He wasn't here when I got here."

Mrs. Weasley started to panic and told everyone to go searching for him.

"He's probably scared to death!" Mrs. Weasley said. "Who knows where he's turned up, he could be anywhere!"

"He's okay, Mrs. Weasley," I told her without really thinking.

"How do you know that?" Mr. Weasley asked me with a curious expression on his face.

"I can just tell," I said. "It's just one of those things…"

I wasn't really sure why, but I could always tell whether or not my brother was safe and always knew how he was feeling about something. It was almost like a sixth sense or something.

After a few minutes or so, we decided to split up and look for a while, if we couldn't find him then we would meet back up where we had originally landed.

I began to walk through the street, looking in Ollivander's, Madam Malkins, etc. Then I heard a very familiar voice.

"Hey Rose!" someone called out to me.

I turned around and saw Neville Longbottom standing nearby holding his toad and standing next to his grandmother, who happened to be talking to someone else.

"Hey!" I smiled as I walked over to him. "Have you seen Harry?"

"No, why?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

"We traveled by Floo Powder and now we can't find him," I said.

"Want me to help?"

Then his grandmother seemed to notice my presence and turned over to me.

"Why, look who it is!" she said.

I looked over to her, almost embarrassed. It had been a while since anyone has freaked out over the mere sight of me, which wasn't really a pleasant feeling. It was rather awkward.

"Neville here has been talking about you all summer," she croaked as she beamed at me. I couldn't help but notice Neville's face that was slowly gaining color. "I've also noticed that you haven't been writing back, young lady."

"Oh," I said. "That's actually a long story, buy I'm actually in a rush . You see, my brother is missing and-"

"Go on, go on," she said as she turned back to the person that she had been talking to.

I grabbed Neville's arm and pulled him along. We walked a little while down Diagon Alley, searching every store for any sign of my brother - we didn't see him in any store that we looked in. We then decided that it was best to just go back to the meeting spot.

We weren't the first ones back either. Hermione had met up with Ron during his search and Mr. Weasley and the twins stood there also.

"There he is!" Hermione said.

I felt a sigh of relief escape me as I saw my brother coming towards us with Hagrid walking alongside him.

"Where did you end up?" Ron asked him.

"Knockturn Alley," Harry said.

"Excellent," Fred and George said, apparently impressed.

"Lucky!" Ron said. "We're never allowed to go there."

Then Mrs. Weasley found us and when she saw Harry she ran over to him, making sure that he was okay.

"Well, I should probably go back to Gran," Neville told me. "She told me that she was going to be leaving soon."

"Oh, well thanks for helping me," I said. "Sorry for not returning your letters, it really is a long story. I'll tell you at school."

"It's fine," he said. "I was just worried that something happened to you, that's all."

I smiled at him and gave him a hug goodbye and he went back to his grandmother.

"Ah, young love," Fred said putting his arm around George.

"It's so innocent, isn't it," George said sighing.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Oh nothing," Fred said.

"Nothing at all," George said.

"I was just worried, that's all," Fred imitated.

"Shut up!" I said, pushing him backwards.

The twins, still laughing, walked off towards another store. The rest of us went off towards Gringotts to get some money.

"Guess who I saw in Borgin and Burkes?" Harry asked Ron, Hermione, and me. "Malfoy and his father."

"What was he doing there?" Mr. Weasley entered into the conversation.

"I think that he was trying to sell something, I know he wasn't interested in buying anything."

"He's worried then," Mr. Weasley smiled.

"Arthur," Mrs. Weasley threw him a look that said _stay out of it_.

After we left Gringotts, we met up with Hermione's parents and Fred and George. The twins were carrying all kinds of things from the joke shop.

"It's going to be a good year," George said admiring all of his purchases.

"Hey, Rosie!" Fred called over to me. "Where's your boyfriend?"

I ran at him and he dropped everything in his arms trying to escape me, laughing in the process. I knew that as soon as I caught him, I was going to choke the life out of him. However, right when I was about to catch him, I was caught by none other than his twin brother.

"Get off me George," I told him as I went to squirm out of his arms.

"You forgot the magic word," George laughed.

"Fred and George!" Mrs. Weasley scolded. "Leave the poor girl alone."

"Whatever you say Mum!" George said.

Then, after a couple of seconds, Fred returned to the group, all of his stuff in hand. I smacked him in the side of the arm when his mother wasn't looking.

"You know you love me," Fred said with a huge grin on his face.

I couldn't help but laugh. Fred was such an idiot.

"Gilderot Lockhart is here!" Mrs. Weasley squealed as we reached Flourish and Blotts.

Sure enough, there was a huge banner on the store that said that Lockhart would be signing copies of his autobiography, _Magical Me_ today.

"We're going to meet him!" Hermione said. "I can't wait! He's written our entire booklist!"

It took a few minutes, but we all managed to squeeze into the store that was filled with Lockhart fans that were waiting to meet him. I saw Mrs. Weasley out of the corner of my eye fixing her hair, obviously preparing to meet this celebrity.

Then, we saw the man himself, looking absolutely ridiculous wearing brightly colored blue robes and smiling all over the place. Surrounding him were several pictures of himself on various books of his. He stared out into the crowd, admiring his many fans. Then, his eyes found Harry and me.

"Harry and Rose Potter!" he said.

He jumped out into the crowd and grabbed the two of us by the arm and pulled us to the front of the room. Much to my embarrassment, and assumingly my brother's also, the entire crowd cheered as the photographer took pictures of us standing with him.

"Smile, you two!" he said. "This is going to be the front page, no doubt!"

He put on a cheery smile and I looked over to Harry who looked as terrified and embarrassed as I undoubtedly did.

"What a grand moment this is!" Lockhart smiled out to the crowd. "I believe that this is the perfect opportunity to announce some wonderful news! When these two delightful children entered this store, they had no idea that I would be giving them both my signed autobiography - free of charge! Not only that, the two of them will have the pleasure of having me as their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts!"

After the crowd went wild, we managed to escape Lockhart. When we made it to the front of the store where the Weasleys stood, Harry handed his book over to Ginny and I handed mine to Mrs. Weasley.

"You can have this." I told her.

Mrs. Weasley looked thrilled with her new book and I was happy for her. I had literally no interest in any of this man's books. To me, he seemed to be a total fake - all about the publicity. He was an absolute fool that I wanted nothing to do with. Too bad that I would have to put up with him at Hogwarts.

"I bet you loved all that Potter," Malfoy said waking over to Harry. "The famous Harry Potter - he can't even go into a bookstore without getting noticed."

"Leave him alone!" Ginny said from behind Harry.

"Oh, isn't that cute?" Draco sneered. "Potter has himself a girlfriend!"

I looked over at Ginny, who went completely red in the face and I suddenly felt the need to defend her.

"At least he has one." I said.

Draco narrowed his eyes at me, his cheeks red, and sneered, "You're one to talk! You aren't going to get anyone with that horrid hair of yours either!"

I frowned. _Was my hair really that bad_? I knew something so stupid shouldn't have bothered me, but for some reason, it did.

Harry must have sensed my discomfort, because he glared at Draco and sneered, "Shove off Malfoy!"

Then Ron made his way over to our crowd at the edge of the shop and looked disgusted at the sight of Malfoy being there.

"Surprised to see Harry and Rose in the shop, are we?" Ron taunted.

"It's more surprising to see you here actually," he sneered. "Can you even afford books?

Ron went to hit Draco, but was stopped by Mr. Weasley when he saw what was going on.

"Let's go," I told them all.

"Why, if it isn't Arthur Weasley," someone said in front of us. It was undoubtedly Draco's father - they looked exactly the same.

"Lucius," Mr. Weasley said coldly.

Mr. Malfoy looked into the cauldron of books that Ginny was holding, picked up an old book, and shook his head. Then he saw Mr. and Mrs. Granger nearby and had a look of pure disgust on his face.

"Just when I thought that your family couldn't sink any lower," he snarled as he looked at Hermione's Muggle parents.

Then, out of nowhere, Mr. Weasley attacked Mr. Malfoy. Apparently, he had insulted him too much.

"Get him, Dad!" I heard from Fred and George across the room.

Then Hagrid burst into the room and broke up the fight - Malfoy had a large mark on his head where he had been hit in the eye by Mr. Weasley. Malfoy threw the book back into the cauldron and left the store. Draco glanced behind at us once and then went trailing behind him.

"That was…AWESOME!" Fred said patting his father on the back.

"I didn't know you had it in you, Dad!" George said smiling.

When we left the store, Mrs. Weasley still lecturing him, I couldn't help but notice the look of triumph that remained on Mr. Weasley's face all the way to the Leaky Cauldron.


	5. Chapter 5

"Come on! We're going to be late!" Mrs Weasley said as she practically pushed her children through King's Cross Station.

I pushed my cart along the way at a fast pace, gaining a few looks from the Muggles in the station because of the owl that was in my cart. I didn't think too much of it though - I wouldn't be here much longer anyway.

As soon as we made it to the wall between platform 9 and 10, Percy ran through the wall and was gone and the rest of the family followed suit. Harry, Ron, and I were the last ones to go and we took off together towards the platform. Just before we got to the platform, however, something happened that we hadn't expected.

We ran straight into the wall, making us fly backwards. All of our luggage flew out of their carts when the fell to the ground.

"What do you think you're doing?" a worker from the station asked us.

We all stood up again and began to gather our things and I noticed the crowd of Muggles that were starting at us, probably thinking that their must be something wrong with us because we had just run directly into a wall.

"Sorry..." I said as I picked up Icarus's cage and placed it back into my cart.

"We just...lost control of the carts..." Harry lied.

When the man left us alone, we realized that the way must have been sealed - we had been too late.

"Great," I said. "Just when we thought we were going to Hogwarts again..."

We tried walking into the platform again, without our carts, just to see if it was really sealed. It was.

"What are we going to do now?" Ron asked us. "Everyone's probably leaving already...it's eleven!"

We pushed our carts out of the way of the oncoming crowd of Muggles just to avoid the glares from them. We probably looked rather odd with the two owls that were in our carts.

"We should probably wait until Mum and Dad get back to the car - " Ron said, but then had a sudden idea. "That's it! The car!"

"What about it?" I asked him.

"It flies! We can drive to Hogwarts with it! All we have to do is follow the train there!"

"Brilliant!" Harry said. "But what about your parents?"

"They can get back to the house with magic, don't worry about them."

We all made our way back to the car in a rush, making sure that we would able to catch up to the train. After we unloaded our carts and got back into the car, Ron started up the engine.

"What if the Muggles see us though?" I asked.

"There's an invisibility button here," Ron pointed to it and pressed it.

Suddenly, the whole car became invisible as Ron drove it into the sky. We drove for a while before we even saw the train.

When we caught up to it though, the car became invisible once more. Ron kept pressing on the button, but the car remained visible.

"We'll just drive up in the clouds..." Ron said as he drove up higher..

Every once in a while we got out of the clouds to make sure that we were still following the train. Within a few hours, we finally made it to the castle. We could see it sitting on a hill nearby and Ron prepared to land it. However, we came across a problem: the car wouldn't start.

"What are we going to do?" Harry panicked.

Ron tried to restart the vehicle, without success, but we managed to make a crash landing inside of a tree just outside of the school.

"Lucky this tree was here," I said.

Then, without warning, the tree began to move. It slowly started to swing the car around and crush it. We all began to scream as the car began to crush with us inside of it.

Ron brought out his wand and began to wave it frantically in the air, a sad attempt to stop the tree from attacking us.

Then, the car started up again and drove straight out of the tree and landed on the ground.

Once we were out of reach of the tree, the car threw us out of the car and onto the ground. Then, it threw our stuff and drove off into the woods.

"Dad's going to kill me!" Ron said as he stared out into the woods.

We gathered all of our stuff together and made our way into the castle, knowing that everyone was already seated. Hopefully, we wouldn't get caught though.

"Look," Ron said pointing into the Great Hall towards the teacher's table. "Snape isn't here."

"Maybe he left," Harry said.

"Maybe he was sacked!" Ron said happily.

"I highly doubt that," I told him. "He's a good teacher, I don't care what you have to say."

"You only say that because you're good in potions," Ron said as we continued to gaze into the Great Hall. "I think he probably left because he didn't get the job he wanted. That and everyone hates-"

"Or maybe," said a voice behind us. "He's standing right behind you, wondering why the three of you did not arrive with the rest of the students."

All of us spun around at the sound of the voice. Snape stood behind us, looking at Harry and Ron angrily, obviously he had heard what they were talking about.

He glanced over at me and said, "Follow me..."

We walked back a while until we reached his office in the dungeons. There, he stood behind his desk and held up a newspaper. On the front page was a flying car that had three children sitting in it.

"You were seen!" Snape said to us. "By several Muggles!"

We stood in front of his desk, the rest of the school sat in the Great Hall, eating dinner happily and talking about their summer. We were being lectured on how were complete morons that could have exposed magic to the Muggles. In other words, we were in deep trouble.

"What were you thinking?" Snape asked us.

"The platform sealed itself..." I told him.

"We were just trying to get to the school," Harry said.

"All you had to do was send the school a letter, Potter!" Snape snarled at my brother. "Instead, you all had to make a grand entrance and crash into a whomping willow that has been here since before any of you were even born!"

"I think the tree did more damage to us than we did to-" Ron said.

Snape shot Ron a look that shut him up immediately.

"We didn't know that we could send a letter, I guess we didn't think of it, sir," I said to him.

Snape looked over to me and immediately turned away. I also noticed the slight twitch in his face and the saddened look that he now had. I never understood it, but it almost looked like he was always in pain in my presence, maybe I was just imagining things.

"If it were up to me, each one of you would be packing your backs right now and leaving-" Snape said, still avoiding my gaze.

"But they aren't your responsibility Severus," someone said from behind us.

I turned to see Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore standing at the potion master's door. McGonagall looked furious.

"Why would the three of you do such a thing?" she asked us. "This is something that I would expect from your brothers, Mr. Weasley, not you!"

We all stood together and were hanging our heads in shame. We knew what was going to be next. She was going to send us back to our homes. I guess that Dobby won after all.

"We'll go get our things..." Ron mumbled.

We all went to walk out of the room and towards our luggage to make our way out of the castle.

"What are you talking about?" McGonagall asked him.

"You're expelling us, right?" Harry asked.

"Not this time, Potter."


	6. Chapter 6

"I thought that we were going to be expelled for sure!" Ron said as we made our way to the Gryffindor Tower.

After we had been lectured about our wrongdoings, we were told to eat in Professor Snape's office to avoid the attention of our fellow classmates. Apparently everyone had heard what we had done. Even though we were not expelled from the school, all three of us had received detention for what we did.

"I did too!" I said and Harry nodded in agreement beside me.

"Password?" the Fat Lady asked us when we reached the portrait.

We all looked at each other, knowing that we had not been given the password.

"There you all are!" Hermione said coming up behind us. "Where have you been? I didn't see you on the train and some idiots were telling everyone that you all were expelled for flying a car to the school. It is absolutely ridiculous!"

"Well..." I said.

"We weren't expelled..." Harry said with a smile on his face.

"What are you saying?" she looked at all of us. "You didn't actually fly here, did you?"

"Yeah..." I said. "It's a long story..."

Her mouth dropped and she began to lecture us about how irresponsible we all were, but was stopped.

"We've already heard it!" Ron said.

"Fine," she said irritably. "I just can't believe that you did that! Especially you Rose!"

"We didn't have a choice Hermione, could you just tell us the password!" Ron said.

"It's 'wattlebird,'" she told us and the Fat Lady's portrait opened up.

When we got into the common room, all the Gryffindors went absolutely wild.

"Did you really fly a car here?" Lee asked us.

"You are my heroes!" Fred said with a look of complete admiration on his face.

"Why didn't you bring us along?" George asked.

"They're going to be talking about this one for years!" Dean Thomas said to us.

Although there were many people praising us for our entrance, there were still some that were not so thrilled. Across the room I could see Percy glaring at us, not even trying to hide his anger.

"I'm just going to go to bed..." Harry mumbled as he made his way through the crowd, Ron following him.

I stood in the crowd and spoke to a few people that were asking questions, telling them that we only did that because the platform had sealed itself.

"I didn't know you had it in 'ya, Potter!" Fred said.

"I can't believe that you would do that, Rose," someone said with a disgusted tone in their voice.

I turned around and saw Percy Weasley with crossed arms and a look of disappointment across his face.

"You and your brother are influencing my poor little brother to turn into people like them," he said glaring at his two twin brothers, who rolled their eyes.

"Wait a second," I said. "You're blaming Harry and me for this?"

He gave me a stiff nod and still looked irritated.

"We didn't have much of a choice, the platform sealed up," I told him. "What's wrong with Fred and George anyway? Why is it so wrong to be like them? Ron would be better off like them than being a stuck up snot like you!"

Percy's face went red and he began to walk away from me.

"She told you!" Fred said laughing at his brother.

-

The next day was the start of the term. We sat at the Gryffindor table and received some happy looks from our fellow classmates, but some glares from others that were disapproving.

I grabbed a piece of bacon as I sat down next to Neville who was praising us for our entrance into the school.

"I can't believe that you all did that!" he smiled. "That's what everyone has been talking about since we got here!"

Then I swarm of owls came into the room and mail was dropped everywhere. Suddenly something large dropped onto the table, knocking over several cups and bowls and even making some people scream.

"Errol!" Ron said as he took the letter from the owl's beak.

The letter that he took though looked different than any letter that I had ever seen. It was blood red.

"Oh no…" Ron said with a frown.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"Mum sent me a Howler…" he groaned.

"What's a Howler?" Harry asked.

"You better open it now Ron," Neville told him. "Gran sent me one once and I didn't open it…it was terrible…"

I looked back at the letter and was about to ask what was so bad about it. Then Ron opened it and my unanswered question got an answer.

"RONALD WEASLEY!" the letter screamed in the voice of Mrs. Weasley. "I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT YOU STOLE YOUR FATHER'S CAR! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING! I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IF YOU HAD BEEN EXPELLED! YOU JUST WAIT UNTIL I GET A HOLD OF YOU! YOU ALL COULD HAVE DIED! WE ARE ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED WITH YOU! YOUR FATHER IS NOW FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK AND IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT! IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE WE WILL BE BRINGING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME!"

Then the letter burst into flames right in front of Ron, who now looked horrified. The entire room was staring in our direction, each one of them silent. But after a moment everything went back to normal.

After breakfast was over, we had to go to our first class - Herbology. It wasn't really my favorite subject, but it wasn't all that bad.

When we got to the greenhouses, Professor Sprout stood in front of us in her usual attire with dirt all over herself.

"Welcome back everyone!" she smiled at us. "I hope that you are all ready to learn!"

We all surrounded our teacher, waiting to go into the new greenhouse.

"I heard that there are all kinds of dangerous plants in this one," Neville said happily.

Right when she opened the doors, we all followed her in. However, right when Harry and me were going through the door, we were stopped by someone behind us. It was Lockhart.

"Why, hello Potters!" he said with a large cheesy grin on his face. "I just wanted a word with the two of you."

I looked at Harry and back at Lockhart with disgust.

"For what?" I asked him.

"Just a quick word," he said happily.

We walked back outside of the greenhouses, after Professor Sprout gave us permission, and stood with Lockhart. He looked ridiculous.

"Harry and Rose, Harry and Rose!" he said.

We stood silent, waiting for him to say something. Instead of continuing, he stood there staring at us with that huge smile that he had.

"What!" I said, obviously annoyed.

"I know why the two of you came in here by flying car, you two don't fool me for a minute!" he smiled.

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked.

"The two of you enjoy publicity!" he said, still smiling. "You just couldn't stand not being in the paper for a second, I guess that is my fault!"

"Are you stupid?" I said. "It had nothing to do with that."

He ignored my comment and went on.

"I realize that the two of you look up to me, because I'm a famous wizard and all," he said admiring himself. "But, you have to calm down a bit. When I was your age, I was a nobody too! Fame will come! I know that a few people know about that little spat that the two of you had with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, it's not as big of a deal compared to Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award, but it's a start!"

He gave us a wink and walked off.

"What the hell was that about?" I asked my brother, who shrugged.

When we walked back into class, everyone stood around a table that was filled with all kinds of earmuffs. We walked over to stand next to Ron and Hermione as Professor Sprout started class.

"Now, who can tell me what a Mandrake is?" she asked.

Hermione's hand flew up into the air as she explained what it was, sounding as though she was reciting it straight out of a book.

"That is correct!" our teacher said. "Ten points to Gryffindor!"

We learned, mostly from Hermione, more about the Mandrake as class continued. Apparently, the cry of a Mandrake can kill anyone who hears it, but a baby Mandrake's cry can only knock you out, and apparently they help cure someone that has been petrified.

We were told that we had to replant the Mandrakes, who looked like dirt-filled babies, the entire class period while wearing fuzzy earmuffs.

"Hi!" a kid from Hufflepuff in our group said. "I'm Justin Finch-Fletchy, I already know who all of you are."

We all smiled at him, not really sure what to talk about. Lucky for us, he enjoyed talking so we didn't really have to say that much.

"Gilderoy Lockhart is something, isn't he?" Justin said. "I read about him and he is really brave. He's been in fights with werewolves and all other kinds of things. I'd be terrified if that was me though! We are so lucky to have him for a teacher!"

"I don't believe a word that he says," I told him.

"Why not?" Justin asked, looking almost offended.

"He's a big fake!" I said, almost laughing. "He's an absolute fool - just look at him!"

"Have you read his books though?" Justin asked.

"I don't have to!" I told him. "He doesn't look like he could hurt a fly! I think that he was just trying to get himself some kind of fame or something."

Justin was about to say something back, but was interrupted when Professor Sprout continued the lesson.

-

We were all sitting in the Great Hall, eating lunch, when suddenly I saw a camera flash.

"What are you doing?" I asked the boy that stood in front of us with a large camera.

"Oh, I'm Colin Creevey!" the boy smiled. "I just wanted to prove that I have met you two, would you sign it?"

Harry and I looked at each other, both dumbfounded.

"Already signing photographs, Potter?" Malfoy came over to us. "Look at famous Potter, can't even escape publicity at school!"

The Slytherins that surrounded Draco sneered at us.

"We didn't ask for this," I groaned.

"Sure you didn't," he sneered. "You're just too famous for your own good, aren't you Rose?"

"Jealous?" I asked him.

"Now, now children!" Lockhart came up behind us. "It's not their fault! Would you like someone more famous in your portrait now, Mr. Creevey? We could all sign it for you!"

Lockhart smiled at all of us, looking idiotic in his neon purple attire. Draco met my gaze and looked as though he was going to start laughing at any moment.

"You have got to be kidding me…" I muttered, putting my hand in front of my face.

Then the bell rang and the crowd left.

"I think you two should refrain from this type of behavior, some people might think that you're a little bigheaded!"

"Yeah, you're one to talk," I muttered.

"I know how you feel, Rose," he said, obviously misinterpreting what I had said. "But, I am, after all, more famous than the two of you, so it is acceptable for me to hand out autographs."

He smiled at us and walked off.

"This is going to be a bad year…" Harry said.


	7. Chapter 7

We were the last ones to make it to our Defense Against the Dark Arts class after lunch and Harry and I sat in the back next to Ron and Hermione.

"Hello class," Lockhart said as he entered the room, a large smile planted on his face. "As you all know, I am Gideroy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award."

I rolled my eyes when I saw some of the girls around the class looking at him with a dreamy expression on their faces. This was pathetic.

"I see that you all have my complete set of books," he said. "I thought that we might take a little quiz on them, just to see what you all know!"

The whole class groaned, except for Hermione who I assumed had read each one of the books over the summer.

The quiz went like this -  
1\. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition? _To look like an absolute buffoon at all times_.  
2\. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date? _Learning his ABC's_.

After the quiz was over, knowing that I wasn't going to pass, we all turned them in. Hardly anyone got the answers right.

"I am very disappointed…" he said looking through the papers. "Only Hermione Granger received a 100."

Hermione looked thrilled when he awarded her with 10 points. Then he walked behind his desk and pulled up a large cage that was covered with a cloth.

"Moving on," Lockhart said, looking around at the class. "I want you to prepare yourselves…what you're about to see may frighten you all. Just remain calm and remember that I am here to protect you."

At this point, the majority of the class was trying to figure out what our teacher was hiding in the cage. Then he pulled the cloth off of the cage dramatically and I heard a few people laugh.

"This is a joke, right?" I said to Harry.

"This is not a joke, Miss Potter, these are very dangerous creatures!" Lockhart said with a serious expression on his face.

"Cornish pixies?" Seamus asked him. "They aren't dangerous!"

"Are you sure about that?" he asked Seamus. "Let's see how you handle them then!"

Suddenly, he opened up the latch to the cage and the blue pixies scattered around the room. People went crazy as the pixies flew around the room and tormented several students. Two of them flew over to Neville and picked him up off the ground.

"HELP!" Neville screamed as the pixies left him on the chandelier.

"Oh, they're only pixies!" Lockhart said, laughing at us.

"THEN DO SOMETHING YOU IDIOT!" I yelled at him as I began swatting at the pixies with one of his books.

Lockhart said some spell, which had no effect at all on the pixies who threw the teacher's wand across the room. Then, without warning, the chandelier that held Neville gave way and he began to fall from the ceiling.

"Impedimenta!" I yelled pointing my wand at Neville, slowing down the fall a little bit.

Neville landed softly on the ground just as the bell rang for the end of class.

"Thanks!" Neville said as he stood up and ran out of the class just like everyone else did.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I stayed back for a few moments.

"Well…" Lockhart said as he ran into his office. "I believe that you all can handle the rest!"

He slammed the door behind himself, escaping the pixies that he couldn't fight.

"YOU'RE PATHETIC!" I yelled after him.

"Rose!" Hermione said. "Don't speak to a teacher that way!"

"She's right!" Ron said as he swatted some more pixies out of his way.

"He just wants to give us some experience!" she said. "He's a genius, haven't you read his books?"

"You actually believe that stuff?" I asked her as I shoved some pixies back into her cage. "I thought that you were supposed to be the smart one!"

-

The next day Harry had Quidditch practice, so I had to try to avoid Lockhart all by myself. Ron, Hermione, and I decided that we would watch Harry practice once they got started, but we all knew that it wouldn't be for a little while because Oliver always had to give them some long speech before practice.

Ron and Hermione were doing homework on a bench in a nearby corridor as I walked along the hallways as I usually did when I was bored. Unfortunately, I ran into someone that I didn't want to see.

"Why hello, Rose!" Lockhart said cheerfully. "Looking for someway to gain fame again, are we?"

"I swear if you don't leave me alone, I'm going to -" I began.

"No need for threats Rose!" Lockhart smiled. "I understand that you would feel threatened by someone as famous as me, but you must learn to accept that some people are better than others."

"Here we go again…" I muttered.

"I know that it is difficult to speak to a wizard that is just so much more powerful than yourself, but it's okay! You're still young!"

I rolled my eyes as he continued.

"In order to become famous, you must do extraordinary things!" Lockhart went on. "Do you think that I just became famous over night? No, I had to fight with werewolves and trolls-"

"Excuse me, Gilderoy," a familiar voice came up behind me. "I need to borrow Miss Potter at the moment. I'm sure that you may continue your… _fascinating_ tale at a later time…"

I turned around and saw Professor Snape glaring at the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

"Of course, Severus," Lockhart smiled. "I need to continue with my fan mail anyway!"

When Lockhart turned around, I saw Snape roll his eyes in that direction. After the cheerful teacher had left the area, I turned to Snape.

"What is it that you need?" I asked him.

Snape looked at me, looking as though he had forgotten that I was there.

"Oh…" he said. "It wasn't anything actually, I just can't stand that man…"

I nodded and said, "You and me both."

"What is he teaching you anyway?" he asked. "How to fight off frizz?"

"It wouldn't shock me," I said. "That seems to be all he's capable of doing. He tried to teach us about fighting off pixies and he couldn't even do it himself, he just ran off."

"Pixies?" Snape muttered.

"Yeah, he tried to make them out to be some kind of terrifying creature or something."

"I'm sure that they are the most terrifying creature that he's laid his eyes on…"

"So, you don't believe his books either?"

Snape rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Ron and Hermione ran around the corner and started to say something, but then saw Snape standing there. The teacher glanced at them and then turned back to me.

"I shall see the three of you in class," he muttered as he walked off.

Ron and Hermione waited until Snape was out of view and then they turned to me.

"What was that about?" Ron asked.

"I ran into Lockhart again," I said, rolling my eyes. "Snape got him to go away."

Ron looked at me funny, but then Hermione spoke up.

"I think that Harry is about to start his practice," she told me.

We all began to walk to the Quidditch field and into the stands. Then we noticed that the field had more than one team on it.

"What's going on?" I asked Hermione and Ron.

"Slytherin," Ron said.

On the field, the two teams glared at each other, apparently in disagreement with something that was going on.

"Why aren't you playing?" Ron asked Harry when we crossed the field.

Then we saw someone on the field that we hadn't before. Draco Malfoy stood in front of us, dressed in the Slytherin team's uniform.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

"I'm the new Seeker, Rose," Draco said, trying to sound impressive.

"How much did that cost?" I sneered.

Draco's smirk disappeared and then I noticed the brooms that everyone on that team was holding. They looked new.

"Jealous?" Draco said, noticing all of us looking at the brooms. "My father bought them for the whole team, maybe the Gryffindor team could do the same - oh, wait! No you can't because none of you have any money."

"At least no one on our team had to buy their way in," Hermione cut in. "We actually have the talent."

"Shut up, you filthy little Mudblood," Draco spat.

I had no idea what that word meant, but apparently it was a huge insult. The entire Gryffindor team began shouting at Draco. Fred and George even went to fight him, but were held back by some of the others.

"You'll pay for that, Malfoy!" Ron yelled and pointed his wand at Draco.

Then I heard a huge bang and the next thing that I knew, Ron was laying on his back looking like he was in pain. Whatever spell he had been trying to put on Draco had backfired because of his broken wand.

"Ron!" Hermione said, running over to him. "Are you okay?"

All of the Gryffindors ran over to Ron and tried to help him up. Then he began to vomit out slugs and we all dropped him. The entire Slytherin team burst out into laughter as they watched Ron vomit more slugs out.

We went to help him up again, but when I grabbed his arm, he puked out a few more slugs that landed right on me. I dropped his arm and back away, looking down at the slugs that were all over my shirt.

"EW!" I yelled and I heard Draco laughing at me.

I picked up two of the slugs and threw it directly at Draco and it smacked right into his face, wiping the grin right off his face. He jumped around trying to get the slimy creatures off of himself, screaming in the process. Fred and George busted out laughing.

"Think that's funny, do you?" Malfoy said. "Wait until my father hears about this!"

Fred picked up a slug from the ground and threw it Draco's face, causing the entire Gryffindor to laugh. After a few seconds, all of the slugs were being thrown at the Slytherin team. They attempted to dodge them as they ran off the field, getting hit in the back with slugs.

Once they were gone, we turned our attention back to Ron.

"I guess we should get him to Hagrid's," Harry said as a few more slugs came out of Ron's mouth.

Harry, Hermione, and I picked him up off the ground and began to walk him towards Hagrid's hut. It took a little while to cross the grounds, but when we managed to make it there after several minutes.

"I was wonderin' when you'd visit me!" Hagrid smiled at us when he saw us at the door.

We helped Ron into the house and set him down in a chair and handed him a large bucket.

"What happened to you?" Hagrid asked as Ron puked some more slugs.

"He was trying to jinx Malfoy," Harry explained. "His wand's broken, so the spell backfired."

"Why would ya do that?" Hagrid asked.

"He called Hermione something, I'm not really sure what it meant though," I told him.

"He called her a Mudblood, Hagrid!" Ron said, barfing out some more slugs.

Hagrid looked furious, just as everyone else had.

"He didn't!" Hagrid yelled.

"What does it mean?" Hermione asked.

"It's an awful name for a Muggle-born," Hagrid said to Hermione. "Some wizards out there think that they are better than everyone else because they are pure-blood, which means that all of their family are witches and wizards."

"Not that being pure-blood even makes you a better wizards," Ron said. "Look at Neville Longbottom! He can hardly do any magic!"

"Don't be mean!" I said, even though I knew that it was true.

"I don't blame ya fer cursin' him, Ron," Hagrid said. "It's probably a good thing that yer wand backfired though, his father coulda gotten ya in a lot of trouble."

We sat around for a little while until Ron had finished puking up slugs. Then we went back to the castle, just after Hagrid showed us the enormous pumpkins that he had planted for Halloween. Apparently he had used some kind of spell to make them bigger, even though he wasn't supposed to use magic. Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts for some unknown reason and wasn't supposed to use magic afterwards.

Right after we made it into the castle, we were all stopped my Professor McGonagall who told us that we would have to start our detention that night.

"Mr. Weasley, you will be polishing silver in the trophy room," McGonagall told him. "And the two of you will be helping Professor Lockhart answer his fan mail."

"Oh no…" Harry groaned.

"Professor, can I please do something else," I begged.

"No, you may not!" she said. "He requested both of you in his office and that is where you will both be!"

It was going to be a long night.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry and I walked towards Lockhart's office that night, dreading what was ahead. Ron had left us when we passed by the trophy room, and I silently wished that I had gotten that job instead.

When we made it to the door, we stood in front of it for a moment - trying to delay seeing Lockhart as much as possible. I knocked on the door after a few minutes and it was answered almost immediately.

"Hello children!" he smiled. "Come in, come in!"

I immediately wished that I could crawl into a hole and stay there for the rest of the night, I would rather be anywhere else than right here.

"You two will be writing the addresses on the envelopes to my wonderful fans," Lockhart said cheerfully.

We sat down in front of his desk that was filled with various letters. We took the envelopes and wrote down the names of the people that Lockhart was writing back to. Those fools.

"Isn't this exciting?" Lockhart asked us.

"I've never been happier," I said sarcastically, glaring at the teacher who remained oblivious.

A few minutes passed by before we were interrupted by someone at the door.

"Hello, Severus, my good friend!" Lockhart smiled widely at Snape.

Snape just glared at him, a look of disgust across his face.

"I believe that you borrowed a cauldron of mine," Snape muttered.

"Ah, yes!" Lockhart jumped up and walked over to a nearby table.

As Lockhart searched for the cauldron, I looked at Snape with pleading eyes, trying to silently beg him to take me from the room.

"Here you go!" Lockhart handed the cauldron over.

"Yes…" Snape muttered and his eyes flickered back to mine. "I believe that I require Miss Potter's assistance once more."

"I believe that this young lady is in detention, Severus," he said. "Do you think it could wait?"

Snape's eyes narrowed as he stepped into the room.

"I was wondering if she could assist me in grading papers, I have far too many," Snape said. "I could let her have the remainder of her detention with me, I believe that you will still have some help from Mr. Potter."

"I guess that you could borrow her Severus, but you owe me!" Lockhart beamed.

Snape just stared at Lockhart with an expression that was just very difficult to explain.

"Yes…" Snape muttered and waited for me to join him at the door.

When we left the room, I glanced back at my brother who looked relieved that he didn't have to go with me. I knew that Snape could be really harsh, but he beats Lockhart any day.

"Thanks," I said as we walked towards his office.

Snape nodded in response as we made our way towards the dungeons.

"I believe that Lockhart has become quite fond of the two of you," he said.

"Unfortunately," I said.

I noticed the corners of his mouth twitch as he opened up the doors to his office.

"I would have offered for your brother to come as well," Snape said. "However, I do not believe that he has the knowledge to be able to look over work that he couldn't even do himself."

I could hear the dislike in his voice when he spoke of Harry and didn't really understand it. I guess it was what Dumbledore had said the year before: Harry resembled my father, someone that had tormented Snape as a child. I guess that isn't something that you could forget easily.

"There are some essays from the first years that I need you to grade, I believe that you remember how to make an antidote to common poisons…?"

"I remember," I said as I picked up a pile of the essays.

I sat down at a table near his desk and started on the essays. I recognized some of the people that had written the papers, including Ron's sister and Colin Creevey. Most of the first years didn't do very well on the paper and I decided to write what they had messed up on.

Snape sat at his desk, looking over some of the other papers that the older students had turned in, frowning every now and then.

Then I heard a noise. It was a voice that made my blood run cold.

" _Come…come to me…let me rip you…let me tear you…let me kill you_ …"

I looked around the room frantically, trying to find out who was talking. Snape raised an eyebrow when he saw me looking around the room.

"Did you hear that?" I asked him.

"Hear what?"

"That voice…" I said, thinking that I might be going crazy.

Snape looked at me curiously, then at the clock.

"I believe that your time is up, Miss Potter," he told me, looking a little concerned. "Perhaps you should go off to bed…"

I stood up slowly, still looking around the room. When I handed in the essays that I had graded, I noticed that Snape was still giving me that concerned look.

-

The next morning during breakfast I talked to Harry about what I had heard during detention the day before.

"You heard it too?" I asked him.

"Yes," Harry said. "It was creepy…it sounded demented."

I nodded and then went back to my breakfast. No one else that we had talked to had heard the voice, it was only Harry and me.

"How was your detention?" I asked Ron. "I didn't see you come in last night either."

"It was dreadful!" Ron said. "I had to clean off this one trophy a million times because I kept barfing up more slugs. It couldn't be much worse than yours though - Harry told me that Snape made you go with him."

"Yeah, what did he make you do?" Harry asked.

Hermione sat down next to Harry when she came in and only heard half of the conversation.

"I thought you had detention with Professor Lockhart," she said, reaching for a piece of toast.

"I did," I told her. "Snape came in and said that he could use my help."

"Help with what?" she asked.

"I just had to grade a few papers, that's all. He said that he knew that I knew about the potion and I would understand whether or not the first years had written their papers correctly."

Hermione nodded, but still had a look of wonder etched on her face. She wanted to know something, but wasn't asking me.

"What?" I asked her.

"Nothing…" she said, not changing her obvious wonder.

I narrowed my eyes in her direction, knowing that she was keeping something from me. I wanted to know and it almost bothered me that she wasn't saying anything.

-

In the common room the following week, I ran into Fred and George in the common room. They were huddled around a table, trying to hide something from view.

"What are you doing?" I asked them as I walked over to them.

They both spun around quickly, trying to conceal whatever they were working on behind them.

"Oh," Fred said with relief. "I thought you were Percy…"

"Wow," I said. "Do I really sound that much like a man?"

"No, it's not that," Fred said.

"It's just that Percy's been sneaking up on us every five minutes lately…" George said. "It's rather irritating."

I looked back over to the table to see what they had been hiding. It appeared to fireworks.

"What is this for?" I asked them, pointing to the fireworks.

"Oh," Fred said. "We're trying to get this thing to work-"

"We made it," George said proudly.

"-but it keeps exploding…" Fred finished.

"That's unfortunate," I said. "Could I look at it?"

"Be my guest," Fred ushered me over.

I looked at the contraption and several similar ones that lay beside it. They told me that they had been trying it out for a while, trying to fix it, but it never seemed to work. The fireworks always exploded before anyone could see the fireworks.

"Fireworks are kind of supposed to explode though, aren't they?" I asked.

"Well…yes…kind of…" George said.

"Let us show you," Fred said as he lit the firework. "Step back!"

The fire went up the fuse and just when it hit the package, the entire thing blew up. There was smoke everywhere, but no sign of any fireworks.

"See?" Fred and George said together.

"Hmmm…" I thought. "Would you mind if I tried something?"

The motioned towards the copies of the fireworks that they had made. When I walked over there, I took out my wand and did a few spells on them. I wasn't sure if they would work, but it couldn't really hurt.

"Try it now…" I said handing it to them.

Fred lit the fuse once again and we all backed away from it. Just when we expected it to go up in some again, we saw something different. Out of the package came salamander that flew around the room. It changed colors constantly from white lights, blue lights, and purple lights. Then, when it flew over us, it opened its mouth and showered us in multicolored stars.

"Wow." I said.

After I had helped them fix all of the other fireworks that they had, they set them all loose in the school. There wasn't a single person in the castle that hadn't seen at least one of the salamander fireworks that the twins had set off. It went on for a while until McGonagall saw Fred and George setting them up in the Great Hall during dinner one night.

-

"We have to go to what?" I asked Harry.

"It's a death day party," Harry explained. "Nearly Headless Nick wanted us all to come…I couldn't say no, he just helped me get out of trouble with Filch!"

It was now October and all anyone could talk about was the upcoming Halloween feast. It was supposed to be incredible this year and now Harry was saying that we would have to miss it to go to celebrate someone's death. None of us really wanted to go to this party, but Harry had already promised Nick that we would go and Hermione refused to break that promise.

So, on October 31, instead of going to the Great Hall, we made our way to the dungeons to celebrate Nick's death. When we went into the room, we were all horrified. The room was incredibly freezing and there was a loud screeching noise that filled the entire area. There were ghosts everywhere too - we were the only people there.

"Welcome to my party!" Nick floated over to us.

He showed us around the room and introduced us to several ghosts, including the Fat Friar and the Bloody Baron.

"Oh no," Hermione said. "Walk this way, I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle…"

We all walked in the other direction when we saw the miserable ghost close to us.

"I think I've seen her before…" I said.

"You probably have," Hermione said. "She haunts the bathroom on the first floor."

I glanced over at her and remembered that I had only seen her for a little while earlier in the year. I had gone into the bathroom, but was dragged out and told not to use that bathroom again by Pavarti Patil. She said that there was no way to use the toilet without hearing her crying the entire time, so I had avoided that room as much as I could.

"I try to avoid that toilet as much as I can…" Hermione said. "She can get very annoying…"

We walked over to where Harry and Ron were standing. In front of them sat a table that was filled with rotting food. It smelled terrible.

"It's not like they can eat anyway," Harry said as he pinched his nose from the smell.

"Can we get away from here…I'm going to be sick," Hermione gagged.

We walked away from the table and avoided as many ghosts as we could. I was silently wishing that I had just gone to the Halloween feast instead. This was horrible.

"Hello," Peeves said as he came over to us. "I couldn't help but overhear you talking about Myrtle…pity if she heard what you had been sayin' Miss."

Hermione's face went pale.

"HEY MYRTLE!" Peeves yelled.

"Please don't tell her!" Hermione begged him. "She'll be really upset!"

Then the other ghost came over to us and had a very depressed look on her face.

"What…?" she said.

"Hello…" Hermione said. "Nice to see you again…"

"Those two girls were talkin' about you," Peeves said.

"No we weren't!" I said.

"We were just saying how lovely you look tonight," Hermione lied.

"You're lying!" Myrtle cried and she quickly flew out of the room.

"Someone's dramatic…" Ron muttered.

I never thought that the party would end, but when it finally did I couldn't have been much happier.

"If I would have stayed in there any longer, I would have died myself!" Ron announced as we walked away from the dungeons.

Then I heard the voice again.

"…rip…tear…kill…"

I stopped walking as I felt a sudden chill go through my body. Harry stood beside me and he was looking directly at the wall where the voice appeared to be coming from. Harry and I both walked over to the wall and put our ears up against it.

"What is it?" Hermione asked a few feet away from us, both her and Ron looked confused.

I held up my hand to silence them as the voice started speaking again.

"…kill…time to kill…"

The voice appeared to be moving away from us.

"Follow us!" Harry told Ron and Hermione as we ran after the cold voice.

We ran throughout the corridor and down a set of stairs towards the first floor of the castle. What was going on? Who was this voice coming from?

"What's going-" Ron started to ask.

"QUIET!" Harry said.

Then Harry and I heard the voice say something from the floor just above us.

"…I smell blood…I SMELL BLOOD!"

I started to panic.

"It's going to kill someone!" Harry and I said together as we ran up the stairs towards the voice.

Ron and Hermione followed close behind us, still confused as to what was going on. They didn't hear the voice, so we probably looked a little crazy. Maybe we were. When we made it to the second floor, there still wasn't anything.

"Seriously, what is going on?" Ron asked, sounding panicked. "I don't hear anything!"

Then Hermione let out a scream and pointed to the end of the corridor. On the wall, large words had been painted between two torches.

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.

"What is that?" Ron said pointing to something that was hanging below the message. We walked closer to the thing and

I noticed that the entire area was flooded. Then I saw what was hanging there and stepped backwards.

It was Mrs. Norris.


	9. Chapter 9

"We need to get out of here," Ron said. "We don't want to be caught here."

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I started to walk away from the message on the wall and Mrs. Norris's body, but then the corridor suddenly became blocked with a large crowd of people. Everyone was going back to their dormitories after the Halloween feast and we were standing there in the middle of the whole scene. That isn't suspicious at all…

Everyone had been talking before they had seen us, but when they did, everyone went silent.

"Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next Mudbloods!" Draco Malfoy said in the front of the crowd.

Draco smiled when he saw the scene behind us, knowing that we were going to be blamed for the entire situation, which we probably would be.

"What's going on?" Filch's voice came through the crowd. "Move out of the way!"

Filch made his way to the front of the crowd, probably trying to see what was stopping everyone. When he saw his cat hanging from the wall, his face went pale.

"MY CAT!" he yelled. "You killed her! I'm going to-"

"Argus!" Dumbledore said as he walked forward.

Behind our headmaster came several other teachers, all of them looking horrified at what they saw in front of them.

"Come with me," Dumbledore said to Harry, Hermione, Ron, and me.

The entire staff, along with us, went into Lockhart's office. Along the way my greatest fear was that no one would believe us. I couldn't really blame them either. After all, we were the only ones in the corridor during the time and we were directly in front of it.

When everyone had gotten into the now crowded office, there was complete silence. I saw McGonagall looking at all four of us, trying to reason out what had happened. Snape was in a back corner, expressionless as he usually was. Lockhart started pacing the room, trying to figure out what had happened to Mrs. Norris despite the continuous sobs coming from Filch.

"It was definitely a curse that killed her - that's obvious!" he said. "I've seen this type of things many times, it's a sad thing really. Not even I can reverse the effects! If you want to know more about it all, you could read my autobiography, it's all there!"

I noticed that in the corner of the room that Snape was rolling his eyes, not even trying to hide his hatred for the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Not that he usually tries to hide his hatred of anyone.

"She's not dead," Dumbledore said. "She's just been petrified."

"Of course she is!" Lockhart said. "It's very obvious."

"I'm not sure how this could happen though, second years are not capable of this magic," Dumbledore said.

We stood around for a few minutes, Dumbledore, along with the rest of the staff, was in deep thought.

"I know it was them!" Filch said. "The boy knows I'm a…SQUIB! He saw my letter! He told his sister and they decided that it would be funny to-"

"WE NEVER TOUCHED HER!" Harry and I shouted together.

"Yeah, right!" Filch spat. "You expect me to believe that rubbish!"

Then, from out of the shadow, Snape stepped forward. I noticed Harry's eyes narrow towards him as he started to speak.

"If I may suggest something, headmaster," Snape said.

Dumbledore nodded and Snape continued.

"Maybe they were all just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, it is rather odd that the four of them were roaming the corridors during the Halloween feast."

"We were at Sir Nicolas's death day party," I explained.

Everyone looked at us, probably thinking that we were insane. It doesn't really make any sense for a person to join in on a celebration with the dead.

"And you didn't return to the Great Hall afterwards because…?"

"We were tired," Harry said. "So we were going back to the tower."

"That and we thought that it might have already ended," I added. "We weren't really sure..."

"I see," Snape said, his eyes narrowing in Harry's direction. "And we should believe you all because...?"

"You could ask Sir Nicholas," I told him.

Snape nodded in my direction and I noticed him do that familiar eye twitch that he did whenever our eyes met - something that I still wonder about...

"Well, there isn't any evidence suggesting that any them did this so-" Dumbledore said.

"What about my cat?" Filch said.

"Professor Sprout has some Mandrakes that we could use once they have fully grown, I will have a potion made to bring her back."

Then Lockhart, in his usual manner, stepped forward with his head held high.

"I'll make it!" he announced.

Snape glared in his direction and started walking slowly towards him.

"I do believe that I am the Potions Master at this school," he said evilly. "Not you."

Mrs. Norris being petrified was the talk of the school for a while after the incident. Some people were disturbed by it, but others were happy. I can't say that I really cared for Mrs. Norris, but I thought that whoever did this was a sick individual. What was with the message on the wall, what did it mean and what was the Chamber of Secrets?

"So you don't know what happened at all?" Dean asked me in the common room the day after.

"No, how would I know?" I asked him.

"Well, you were one of the people standing near the message and everything," Seamus said.

"Yeah, but I was just trying to see what it was."

The Gryffindors were all disgruntled, they wanted to know all about the Chamber of Secrets. In fact, that's what the whole school wanted to know. A lot of people came up to me asking what I knew about it, but I was just as clueless as them.

We were in History of Magic when we learned about it. I was sleeping in class, as I usually did, when I was woken up by Neville.

"Huh-what?" I said sitting up quickly.

Neville looked back at Hermione behind us who had her hand raised in the air.

"Sir, do you know what the Chamber of Secrets is?"

Then, for the first time ever, everyone was awake and paying strict attention to what the teacher was going to say.

Professor Binns let our a large sigh, but decided that it was best if he just told us.

"You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago - the precise date is uncertain - by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school Houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution. But these honest facts have been obscured by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets. The story goes that Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing. Slytherin, according to the legend, sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic."

This time, my hand went up.

"What do you mean by the horror within?" I asked. "What is that?"

"It's supposed to be some kind of monster that only the Heir of Slytherin can control," he answered me. "Not that any of this is actually real. It's complete nonsense."

Then the teacher went back to his usual class and everyone else lost interest, including myself. It took me a few minutes, but I managed to fall back to sleep.

I dreamed about the monster of Slytherin, but I couldn't tell what it was. Every time I got near it, the thing managed to escape my sight.

My dream went on and on until I was woken up once again. Class had ended and everyone was walking out of the class.

"Do you think that it's real?" Harry asked us when we left the class.

"I think that it is," I said.

We walked through the corridors, talking about the possible existence of the chamber when we ended up facing the writing on the wall again. We looked all around the corridor in search of some kind of clue, but all we managed to find were some spiders that were all crawling out of a crack in the wall.

"I hate spiders…" Ron said cowering away from them.

We all laughed at him and looked at the spiders some more.

"It's kind of weird that they are all trying to get out at once," Hermione said. "It's like they're running away from something."

"So, who do you think is the heir of Slytherin?" Hermione asked us when we were in the common room.

I shrugged, honestly not knowing. There isn't anyone in the school that I could think of.

"Hmmm," Ron said. "Let's think, who is the one person in the school that seriously hates Muggle-borns? The one person that is constantly going on about how he is a pure-blood?"

"Malfoy?" Harry asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Ron said.

"I don't think it's him." I said.

Ron rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair dramatically.

"What?" I said.

"You always defend the people that are obviously against us! Can't you just be on our side for once?"

"Who have I defended that is against us?" I said.

"Let's see," Ron said. "Last year you defended Snape when we-"

"He was innocent!" I said. "I was right!"

Ron looked in the other direction, knowing that he didn't really have much of a fight to put up.

"I know that Draco is a prick, but I really don't think that it's him. He just seems like a bunch of talk."

"I think you're right," Hermione said. "But there is a way that we could get Malfoy to tell us…"

Harry raised an eyebrow and Ron looked at her like she was crazy.

"Yeah, that'll be pleasant!" Ron said. "Let's just stroll over to Malfoy and ask him if he's the heir of Slytherin!"

"That's not what I meant," Hermione said irritably. "We could use Polyjuice Potion to get into the common room. We could make ourselves into Slytherins and he would never know the difference."

"What's that?" Harry and Ron asked.

"That's going to take a while to make…" I said. "I read about it the other day and it said that it takes about a month to complete it."

"Not to mention it is very difficult to make…" Hermione said. "Do you think that you could make it?"

I looked around, trying to see if she was talking to someone else.

"Why me?" I asked.

"Because you are the best potions maker in this group!" Hermione said.

"What about you?"

"I wish that I could be as good as you were! You've made every potion in class so far without a single flaw!"

"Well…I don't know…"

"Please!" Hermione begged me.

"Fine, but I don't know how to make it."

"What is Polyjuice Potion?" Harry and Ron asked again.

"It transforms a person into someone else," Hermione said then looked back at me. "I know where the book is in the library that has the instructions. Only problem is that it's in the restricted section…"

"We could get a pass, say that we are interested in the theory or something like that…" I suggested half-heartedly.

Ron scoffed loudly at me.

"Yeah, like any teacher would believe that!" he said. "They'd have to be a complete moron!"

"I think I know exactly the person." I smiled.


	10. Chapter 10

"Now, the homework for tonight is to create a poem that tells about my fight with a werewolf!" Lockhart said at the end of class.

We all acted like fools the entire class period in attempt to suck up to the teacher so he would sign the form that allowed us to get the book out of the restricted section. I was so glad that all of that was about to be over because I was so sick of that man.

"Professor," Hermione said walking up to the teacher that was wearing emerald green robes. "I was wondering if you could sign this-"

"Ah," Lockhart said. "An autograph, don't mind if I do!"

"It's a permission form," I said bluntly.

Lockhart looked at the paper and was confused for a moment, then realized it was for a book in the restricted section.

"I wanted to check it out so I could have a better understanding of your book Gadding with Ghouls and the venom that was mentioned-" Hermione said innocently.

"Of course!" Lockhart smiled. "Anything for my best student!"

He took out a quill from his desk drawer and signed the form. I thought that it was all over, but Lockhart insisted on talking all about the book with Hermione. We stood in there for a good while and then we finally managed to escape after he described each strategy that he used to trap the Ghouls.

"Did he even look at the book that we were getting?" I asked as we left the classroom.

"I doubt it!" Ron said. "He's such a git! He was too busy talking about all of his 'adventures' to even bother looking at it!"

"He is not a git!" Hermione blushed.

When we got into the library, we handed Madam Prince our note. Once she determined that the note was real, she went back into the restricted section and got the book. It was really big.

Once we had the book, we ran off to the only place that we knew no one would be in: Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

When we made it to the bathroom, Hermione handed me the book with an encouraging smile. I took it and searched through the contents until I made it to the right page. The potion was going to be hard to make.

12 lacewing flies that have been stewed for 21 days  
1 ounce of crude Antimony  
4 leeches that have been "unsucculated"  
16 scruples of fluxweed that were picked at full moon  
3 drachms of pulverised Sal Ammoniac  
Pulverised blades of knotgrass  
1 pinch of powdered horn of a Bicorn that has been "lunar extracted"  
Filings and rasplings of Saltpeter, Mercury and Mars  
Shredded dried skin of a Boomslang  
Extract of The-Transfigured-Being-To-Be

"I have no idea how we're going to get all of these ingredients…" I said as I read through the list.

The other three crowded around me and read over the ingredients too.

"We're going to have to steal a lot Hermione…" Harry said looking at the book. "What if Snape notices?"

"So what if he does?" Hermione said. "There is no way that he could find out who it was!"

We decided that there was no way that we could back out now. We already had the book and there was no way that we were going to let anyone get away with killing Muggle-borns - whether it was Malfoy or not.

The next day there was a Quidditch game - Gryffindor vs. Slytherin. We all set out towards the field just before the game and found our seats in the stands. I sat next to Ron and Hermione, but not all that many people were in the stands yet. Across the stadium I could see some Slytherins holding up a sign that said MALFOY on it in big letters.

"I hope that Malfoy gets hit in the head with a Bludger…" Ron muttered as he looked at the signs.

We sat there for a while before many people finally began filling the stands.

"Hey Rose!" Neville smiled as he sat down next to me.

I smiled back at him and then looked back to the field where players were starting to come out. In single-filed lines, each team walked out onto the field, both teams looked determined to beat the other.

Right when the whistle was blown, each team flew up into the sky. We all stood up and cheered for Harry and our team. I was watching Harry, who appeared to be talking to Draco on his broom, when something unexpected happened. A Bludger was headed directly towards me. I quickly dodged the ball, but when I looked up it was gone. Directly in its place was George Weasley who had just hit the ball across the field with a bat.

"That was weird…" he muttered as he started to fly off.

I looked up and saw that Harry was now flying away from the other Bludger that was on the field and Fred was trying to get it away from him. Then, a Bludger began to go straight towards me again.

"Look out!" Hermione screamed.

George wasn't that far away from me at the time and managed to hit it in another direction before it came in contact with my face. Before he flew away, the ball came right back over to me.

"What is going on?" George yelled as he smacked the Bludger across the field.

Harry soared by the crowd, still trying to get away from the Bludger that was chasing him. It was weird, they normally didn't do that. What was going on?

"Rose, watch it!" Neville shouted as the ball came back towards me.

I dropped to the ground to avoid getting hit by it, but when I did, the ball soared into the air directly above me and dropped. I quickly stepped back as the ball began to smash the ground that I had just been standing on.

"WHAT IS HAPPENING?" I yelled as I dodged it again.

George flew back over to me and smacked the Bludger away from me once more, but this time he didn't fly away.

"The Bludgers appear to be trying to hit the Potter twins!" Lee Jordan's voice said over the speaker. "And one of them isn't even in the game!"

At that moment, the ball came back once more at incredible speed, but George managed to hit it again. Then he did something that I didn't expect - he grabbed a hold of my arm and pulled me onto the broom.

"Hold on!" George said to me. I threw my arms around his middle as he took off towards the field.

"George Weasley appears to have picked Rose Potter up from the stands - can't say I blame him, she's rather attractiv-"

"LEE!" I heard McGonagall's voice from the stands.

"What is going on Weasley?" I heard Wood's voice in front of us.

I looked around George's back and saw Oliver in front of us on his broom.

"What did you expect me to do?" George said. "I couldn't just stay there the entire time - the thing kept trying to hit her!"

As if on cue, the Bludger came towards me once again, but George managed to get it away.

"It'll be easier to get it away if it's coming towards me too!" he shouted as he watched the Bludger fly away.

Then Madam Hooch came over to us and told us that it was acceptable because the Bludger appeared to be following me and there wasn't really anything else that they could do. There wasn't any way that George was just going so stay at the stands the entire game. This way he would be able to be in the game too.

We flew around the stadium for a while, flying away from the Bludger and watched as Harry flew around also, avoiding the other ball.

Then, just as the Slytherin team was going to score, George stopped abruptly. He swung his bat at the Bludger and hit it directly at the Chaser that was holding the Quaffle.

"Nice," I laughed.

"It's a fun game, really," George said in front of me.

Then I heard Lee freaking out about something over the speaker and I looked towards him.

"POTTER HAS THE SNITCH!" Lee shouted.

The Gryffindor team cheered for a moment, then I saw a Bludger headed straight for Harry who lay flat on the ground. He managed to dodge the ball long enough for someone to stop it.

Then I saw something headed towards me from the side and suddenly, everything went black.

-

There were voices all around me, all of them sounding panicked. I heard my name said a few times in the mix along with Harry's name, but the rest was just noise.

"What…?" I said as I regained consciousness.

I started to sit up, but immediately layed back when I felt a throbbing pain in my head. I went to reach for it, but for some odd reason, I couldn't move my arm.

"What's going on?" I said.

I looked around and saw that I was laying on the ground on the Quidditch field. Harry sat feet away from me looking horrified. I noticed that his arm appeared to be deflated. Then I saw my arm…and then my leg. They both lay completely flat as if they didn't have anything in them.

My eyes widened when I saw them and I felt my eyes roll in the back of my head and I saw black again once more.

-

"I think she's waking up…" I heard someone say.

I opened up my eyes and saw several people surrounding me. I was laying on a bed in the hospital wing. I still felt a great deal of pain in my head and my right arm and leg still weren't working.

Fred, George, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Oliver, Dean, and Seamus all stood around the room, either looking at me or Harry, who was sleeping in the bed next to me.

"What happened-?" I started to ask.

"It's all my fault," George said looking down. "I wasn't paying attention and the Bludger hit you fell and broke your arm and leg…"

"It's not your fault, George," I said. "There was something wrong with that Bludger, that's all."

He had a small smile on his face, but still looked as though he was feeling guilty.

"Why are my arm and leg flat then…" I said.

I heard a snicker come from Ron who was standing to my left towards Harry's bed.

"That was Lockhart," he said. "He thought that he could help by making all of your bones disappear - he did the same thing to Harry."

Then Madam Pomfrey came hustling over.

"Why didn't anyone tell me that she had woken up!" she said, shooing people out of the way. "Miss Potter, as you may have noticed, the bones in your leg and arm are missing."

I nodded as I stared at my deflated arm and leg.

"I had to wait until you were awake to give you this potion," she said handing it over. "It's Skele-Grow. It's painful, but it'll re-grow your bones…"

I took the potion from her and drank it all at once - it was disgusting.

"Now, everyone needs to leave!" she said to everyone else. "The two of them need their rest! Off you go!"

Once everyone had left, I began to feel the effects of the potion. It was terrible…

Lockhart is a moron.


	11. Chapter 11

I didn't sleep very well that night. Something about re-growing bones in your sleep…it just isn't as easy as it sounds. After a while though, I did manage to fall asleep. It wasn't long afterwards that I was woken up again, but this time it wasn't from pain - there was a loud pop that went off in the room.

I sat up quickly, ignoring the stabbing feeling that I felt in my arm and leg to see what was in the room. In between Harry's bed and my bed stood a small creature that had huge, green eyeballs.

"Dobby?" I said.

I saw Harry staring at him too, wondering why he was there.

"Harry and Rose Potter came back to Hogwarts!" he squealed. "Even after Dobby warned them, even after Harry and Rose Potter missed the train!"

"How did you-" Harry started.

"It was you!" I said. "You blocked the entrance, didn't you?"

Harry's head shot right in Dobby's direction, anger in his eyes. Dobby looked down at the ground, guilt in his large eyes.

"Why would you do that?"

"Dobby had to stop Harry and Rose Potter!" he squealed. "Dobby never thought that they would find another way!"

I looked over at Harry, who looked as though he wanted to hurt Dobby for what he had done. If it wasn't for his arm then he probably would have strangled him.

"Harry and Rose Potter must go home at once! Dobby thought that when his bludgers hit both of that-"

"YOUR bludgers?" Harry asked him. "They were YOUR bludgers?"

"Dobby was only trying to make Harry and Rose Potter leave Hogwarts. There are great dangers here this year! Dobby cannot let Harry and Rose Potter to stay here while history repeats itself, now that the Chamber of Secrets is open again-"

"Again?" I asked. "What do you mean again Dobby?"

"Does that mean that it's been opened before?" Harry asked.

Dobby remained silent and looked horrified that he had told us that much.

"Who is it Dobby?" Harry asked him.

"Who opened the Chamber of Secrets last time?" I asked him.

"Dobby must leave," he said.

Then, with a single snap of a finger, Dobby was gone. Then I heard voices coming from the door to the hospital wing.

Immediately, Harry and I laid down and acted as though we were still asleep.

I opened my eyes slightly so that I could watch what was happening only feet away from me. In the room stood Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore carrying what looked like a statue. They set this statue on a bed and began to talk to Madam Pomfrey.

I looked back over to the statue and saw a familiar face on it. It was Colin Creevey, the boy that always had that camera.

"Petrified?" Madam Pomfrey asked when she looked at Colin.

Both McGonagall and Dumbledore nodded and looked over at Colin.

"Do you think that he could have gotten a picture of his attacker?" McGonagall asked pointing to his camera.

They walked over to the petrified body of Colin and took the camera from his hands. When they went to open up the camera, it let out smoke.

"It was melted…" Dumbledore said.

"What does this mean?" McGonagall asked.

Dumbledore let out a sigh and set the camera down slowly.

"It means that the Chamber of Secrets is open once more."

McGonagall looked shocked.

"But…who could have opened it?" she asked.

"It isn't a matter of who, Minerva…it's how…"

I woke up the next morning with both an arm and a leg that once again had bones. It still felt a little funny, but at least everything was back where it was supposed to be. Both Harry and I were released from the hospital wing later that day.

When we found Ron and Hermione, we quickly told them everything that had happened the night before.

"So…it's been opened before?" Hermione asked us.

"I guess so…" Harry said.

"That's what Dumbledore said," I told her.

"It has to be Malfoy then," Ron said. "His dad probably opened it before and then told him how to do it."

I sighed. I still didn't think that it was Draco, but Ron did have a point. Draco's father went to Hogwarts and was also in Slytherin - along with the rest of his family. Draco Malfoy, even though he is a prat, could possibly be the heir of Slytherin. But something told me he wasn't.

"So, I guess we are going to have to get a move on with this Polyjuice Potion," I said.

"Well, I've already been gathering the ingredients…" Hermione said. "There are still more that we are going to need though and I was thinking that we could probably get them from Snape's office tomorrow during double Potions."

"Good idea."

Throughout the rest of the day, the only thing, or person rather, that was on everyone's mind was Colin Creevey.

Everyone was terrified that they were going to be next.

A lot of the students were getting all kinds of things that were supposed to protect them from things like this. I saw Neville during lunch that day wearing an odd looking onion around his neck.

"Neville, I thought that you were a pureblood," I said. "The monster is only going after Muggle-borns."

"I know that, but you never know," he said. "They did go after Filch…"

"He's also a Squib," I told him.

"I'm not that far from being a Squib…" Neville mumbled.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him.

"Well, I'm not very good at magic."

"That doesn't mean that you're a Squib!"

"I know my Gran said that she was convinced that I was going to be one when I was younger. I didn't show any signs of magic for a long time."

-

In mid-December I had nearly finished making the potion. I was only missing a few ingredients, but Hermione assured me that she would be able to get them from Snape without him knowing it.

Considering that all of us had signed up to stay during the Christmas holiday, Malfoy also decided to stay which was a little suspicious, we decided that it would be best to take the potion then so we could disguise ourselves as some Slytherins that weren't there.

Then Monday came along and we had double Potions. We had to make a Swelling Solution in class, one that I had already read the instructions to in the book that Hermione had given me for Christmas the year before. We decided that it was best if Harry and Hermione took from the store because they sat closer to Snape's office.

"Potter, your potion is far too runny…" Snape sneered at Harry. "Maybe if you had actually read the instructions, you would have gotten it right."

I could tell that Harry wasn't really paying attention to what Snape was saying and was just waiting for the signal from Hermione. Fred and George had given me one of the fireworks that I had helped them with and had given it to Harry to throw into someone's cauldron to create the distraction.

Right when Snape turned around, I saw Hermione nod and Harry pulled out the firework. He lit it with his wand and quickly threw the firework into Goyle's potion on the other side of the aisle without anyone else noticing.

BOOM!

Goyle's Swelling Solution splattered in every direction and got on everyone in the area. I felt some of it hit my hands as Harry and Hermione ran into Snape's office.

"Everyone calm down!" Snape yelled. "Anyone that was hit, come over here and take the antidote."

By the time I made it over to get the antidote, my hands were the size of baseball mitts. It was ridiculous. On my way back to my desk, my hands were now their normal size, I noticed Harry and Hermione back at their desks with their robes bulging from the ingredients that they had stolen.

"What is this?" Snape snarled as he pulled out the firework from Goyle's cauldron.

Everyone went completely silent and looked around, trying to see if anyone would come forward.

"If I find out who did this, I will make sure that they are expelled!"

Once we got out of class, we practically ran back to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom to finish the potion. Harry and Hermione handed me the last of the ingredients and I quickly threw them together in the cauldron and stirred everything up, making sure to follow each step perfectly.

"Now we just have to wait two weeks for it to be finished…" I said.

-

I quickened my pace as I walked away from Myrtle's bathroom, and towards the Gryffindor common room; glancing over my shoulder every few seconds. Much to my disappointment, I could still see him following me.

"Rose Potter," Lockhart called out cheerfully, "I know my fame might come off as intimidating, but there's no need to be afraid of it and run away from me!"

I sighed and turned around. There was no way I could get away this time.

"So as I was saying the other day before Professor Snape interrupted us, I've had my fair share of battles with-" I rolled my eyes as he went on and on. I quickly scanned the hallway, hoping Snape would come and save me again, but it was empty.

About five minutes into the one sided conversation, my patience wearing thin, I saw a Hufflepuff coming towards us and I almost cried out of joy.

I smiled brightly, waving at the boy who I could now noticed was atleast in his fourth year, "There you are! I've been looking for you all over!"

Lockhart turned around to look at the boy, who himself glanced around to to make sure that it was him I was talking to.

"You have?" the boy asked looking at me strangely.

"Of course I have! You promised me you were going to meet me in the library!" I fake scolded the dark haired boy, who now looked utterly confused.

"I did?"

"How could you forget?" I frowned, and then looked back at Lockhart, "I'm sorry Professor, but as much as I'd love to listen to your story about the troll, I have to go. I'm very bad at potions and Professor Snape has asked William here to tutor me."

"Has he now?" Lockhart asked.

The boy looked at me and silently pleaded him to lie.

"Yes Professor Lockhart," he said, glancing at me, "Rose is failing in Potions, and I'm supposed to tutor her. Infact, we should get going now."

I nodded frantically.

Lockhart looked disappointed. "Well, that's very unfortunate, Miss Potter. But I have to go too, I have a surprise for all my students." he said, smiling brightly, and then looked at _William_ , "You're all going to love it."

And with a swish of his blue robes, he walked away.

I stared after him for a while, and then looked a the boy who was looking at me with an amused expression.

"Thanks for going along with it." I said, as we started walking in the opposite direction.

"No problem, I find him insufferable too." he said, then adding with a smile, "And it's Cedric Diggory. But I don't mind you calling me _William_."

He extended his hand, and I shook it. "Rose Potter."

"I know."

I blushed when I realised that he knew my name, but I hadn't known his. "I'm sorry I didn't-"

He waved me off as if to say _'don't worry about it'_ and smiled, "What did he want anyway?"

I rolled my eyes, "He was giving me tips on how to be famous like him. Says I'll never be as good, but I could always try."

"You must be devastated." he muttered.

"You bet I am. Can't imagine what I'm going to do with my life now."

He grinned, "I can hardly wait for the surprise he's planning."

"Oh yes, about that, I'd advise you to not expect much," I said, "He's an idiot. Probably going to set butterflies around and tell us to defend ourselves against them."

Cedric smiled and raised his eyebrow.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head, "Just that you're the first girl I've talked to who doesn't fancy him."

I nodded, "Everyone's infatuated with him. It's all just sad to watch, really. He's a moron."

I stopped when I noticed that we were in front of the Gryffindor common room, and turned to him.

"I stop here." I smiled, "It was nice talking to you. Thanks for saving my soul Cedric."

"You're welcome Rose. " he grinned, hiking his bag higher on his shoulder.

 _"I'll see you around?"_

 _"You will."_

-

"Why do we need a Dueling Club?" I asked.

We were all gathered around in the Gryffindor common room reading a flyer that said that this club was starting.

"You never know, it could help," Seamus said.

"It couldn't hurt I guess," I said. "Should we go?"

We all went into the Great Hall that night to see what this club was going to be all about. Apparently, a lot of people were wondering about the club too because a lot of people showed up. All of the tables had been put up and where they had been sat a large stage.

"I wonder who the teacher is going to be," Hermione said.

"As long as it isn't Lockhart," I muttered and immediately froze when I remembered him talking abut a _surprise_ earlier.

I wasn't disappointed when I saw none other than Gilderoy Lockhart walking on the stage, wearing purple robes and the same obnoxious smile on his face. Following behind him was Snape wearing black as he usually did.

"Welcome all!" Lockhart smiled. "I have been given permission to start a little dueling club to teach you young ones a little about fighting. I know that you may be intimidated by my amazing skill-" Ron, Harry, and I all snorted. "- but that is okay, you are all students!"

He smiled down at all of us and then motioned towards Snape.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," Lockhart said. "He claims to know a little about dueling himself and will be helping me with a little demonstration! Don't worry though, you'll still have your Potion's teacher when I'm finished with him!"

Lockhart laughed and looked back at Snape who had a dead expression on his face.

"Hmmm…let's make this a little interesting, shall we?" Lockhart said.

Snape looked over at Lockhart with a look that suggested that he had absolutely no idea what was going on. He looked around in the crowd and his eyes stopped on me.

"Rose Potter!" Lockhart smiled at me. "Would you be willing to help me with something?"

I looked around and then back at him, wondering what he wanted.

"Now?" I asked him.

"Of course!" Lockhart said.

"I'm good…" I said. "I think I can just watch…"

"You three, get her up here," Lockhart asked some of the older kids that were in the front.

Three seventh year students came over to me and half-forced me up onto the stage. Snape gave me a questioning look, but I was just as confused as he was.

"What is he doing?" I whispered to Snape.

"No idea."

Then Lockhart turned over to us and smiled.

"Now, we are going to do a little reenactment now, okay?" he said to us. "As you all remember from my book Battling Against the Dark, I had to save several people from a dark wizard that was trying to enslave them. What we're going to do here is show you what happened!"

I looked off the stage at Harry and Ron who were rolling their eyes and at Hermione who looked extraordinarily jealous that I got to be up here with Lockhart.

"Snape here is going to act as the dark wizard that I attack and Rose is going to be the one that I am going to save!"

Snape and I looked at each other and back at Lockhart.

"Why are we doing this?" I asked him.

"Oh, just go with it!" Lockhart said. "You're the innocent and defenseless little girl, which isn't that far of a stretch actually! Go over there now!"

I walked to where he was directing me and crossed my arms. This was ridiculous.

"Let's make this a little more realistic, shall we?" Lockhart smiled.

He pointed his wand at me and waved it in the air, out of it came several ropes and a chair. The ropes tied themselves around me and attached me to the chair.

"Excuse me!" I yelled. "I didn't sign up for this!"

"Be silent, child!" Lockhart said. "I'm coming to rescue you!"

I was furious. I could knock him out with a single flick of my wand if I wanted to.

Lockhart began to pounce all over the place, looking like a complete idiot. Snape just stood there in front of me, looking entirely bored with the entire situation. Then Lockhart and Snape stood in front of each other and bowed.

"You must let the girl go!" Lockhart said, attempting to act out the scene.

Snape rolled his eyes and raised his wand, Lockhart copying this motion.

"Now, on the count of three we will both cast our first spell, not trying to kill of course - something that I had to do in the real scenario!"

"One - two - three!"

"Expelliarmus!" Snape cried.

Before Lockhart could defend himself, a flash of red light hit him square in the chest and he was thrown backwards and fell flat on his face.

I couldn't hold back a laugh when I saw Lockhart hit the ground and the Slytherins cheered.

"Can I leave now, this is ridiculous!"

Snape waved his wand once and the ropes and chair were gone and I was free to go.

"Ah, the Disarming Spell! I was completely prepared for that, I just wanted you all to see its effects," Lockhart said as he stood up. "Excuse me, Rose! The demonstration isn't over."

"Actually, it is," I said as I walked off the stage.

Lockhart went to say something else, but Snape stepped forward and gave him one of the most threatening looks that I had seen from him, he decided to keep his mouth shut.

"What was that about?" Harry asked me when I got over to them.

"You tell me," I said. "Lockhart is a complete idiot! I have no idea what he was trying to prove there."

"Okay, well that will be all the demonstrations for now then…" Lockhart said. "How about we get into pairs?"

We all stood around, looking for partners. Ron and Harry were together and Hermione went with me.

"I don't think so," Snape said to Harry and Ron. "Potter, you go with Malfoy, Weasley with Finnigan."

Snape's eyes flickered in my direction, but he continued to walk.

We started our duels, both Hermione and me were practicing the disarming spell that Snape had showed us. Then we turned to see Draco and Harry fighting. A snake had come out of Draco's wand and was making its way towards Harry and looked like it was going to attack him.

"Stop!" Harry said.

Everyone went silent and stared at Harry. Then the snake slithered over to Justin, the kid from our Herbology class, and began to hiss at him.

"Leave him alone!" I said to the snake.

It looked over at me and people's mouths dropped as they looked from Harry to me.

I then noticed that the entire room was all staring at us with fear and confusion in their eyes. What was wrong with everyone?


	12. Chapter 12

_Why was everyone looking at us?_

Harry and I stood in the Great Hall with the rest of the school and hey were all staring at us. What was going on?

"What do you think that you're doing?" Justin said with an angry look on his face.

Then he stormed out of the room. Both Harry and I were confused. We were trying to get the snake away from him and now he was angry, what's with that?

Snape stepped forward slowly, eyeing both of us, and waved his wand. Instantly, the snake vanished from sight. The next thing I knew, I was being dragged out of the Great Hall by Ron and Hermione.

"Why didn't you two say that you were Parselmouths?" Ron asked when we made it into the common room.

"What?" Harry and I said together.

"A person that can talk to snakes!"

"We've only done this once before," I said. "It isn't that big of a deal."

"Yeah, I bet a lot of people can do it," Harry shrugged.

Ron and Hermione looked at each other and then back at us.

"No they can't," Hermione said. "This isn't a good thing..."

"Why not?" I said. "What's so bad about talking to snakes?"

"Yeah, if it wasn't for us, that snake would have attacked Justin!" Harry said.

"That's what you were saying to it?" Ron asked. "It looked like you two were trying to get it to attack him or something."

"What are you talking about?" I said. "You heard us, you knew that-

"We heard you speaking snake language!" Ron said. "We didn't understand it - no one did!"

"How can we speak a language without knowing that we can?" I asked.

"That doesn't make any sense..."

"Why is it a bad thing Hermione?" Harry asked her.

I noticed that Hermione still had a panicked look on her face like she knew something that we didn't.

"It's just that..." she said. "Being able to talk to snakes is what Salazar Slytherin was famous for..."

"Now everyone is probably thinking that you two are the heirs of Slytherin or something," Ron said.

-

I don't know what was worse - being mocked for Lockhart's little demonstration or being avoided because people believed that I was one of the heirs of Slytherin. Worst of all, Harry kept freaking out about what Justin was thinking, like he thought that we were out to kill him or something.

"I don't care what he thinks," I said. "We aren't the heirs of Slytherin and we weren't trying to kill him. I don't have to prove anything to him."

"Well, I don't want him or anyone else thinking that." Harry said.

Harry went off to the library and I stayed back with Hermione and Ron in the Great Hall. I didn't feel that I had to apologize to Justin for anything. Ron, Hermione, and I stayed in the Gryffindor common room, talking over our plan with the Polyjuice Potion and who we were going to turn into. Then I saw Fred and George come into the room and I suddenly had an idea.

"I'll be right back..." I mumbled to Ron and Hermione.

I walked over to Fred and George who had sat down at a nearby table.

"Oh no!" Fred said. "It's the heir of Slytherin!"

"Careful Fred," George said. "She might send that monster out on you."

I rolled my eyes at them as they laughed.

"I have a plan and I need you two to help me," I said.

The twins looked at each other and smiled deviously, ready to cause any kind of trouble that they could.

"What is it?" Fred asked me.

"I want revenge on Lockhart," I said. "I want to show him that he can't make a fool out of me and get away with it."

"You're talking about that demonstration, aren't you?" George asked.

I nodded at them and looked back at Ron and Hermione who were still talking to each other.

"What do you want to do?" Fred asked.

"I have something in mind..."

-

Fred, George, and I made our way throughout the corridors of the school and headed towards Lockhart's office later that night. In our hands we carried something that we had created for the prank that we were doing.

It was a box of candy and a letter written to Lockhart.

When we arrived at his room, we opened the door slowly and saw that he wasn't there.

"Perfect," Fred said.

"Excellent," George smiled.

We set down the items on his desk and left the room without a trace.

After we left Lockhart's office, Fred and George said that they were going to go and get some food from the kitchen and that they would meet me back in the common room afterwards.

I walked alone through the corridors towards the common room and smiled to myself when I thought of the prank that was just about to unfold. Of course, I wouldn't actually see the effects until the following morning - but it was worth the wait.

Then, in the middle of my thoughts, I was interrupted when I heard Peeve's yell further down the hallway.

"THERE'S BEEN ANOTHER ATTACK! EVERYONE RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

I panicked and ran towards the voice that I had heard. I wasn't the only one that heard it either. When I made it there, there was already a crowd of people surrounding what I assumed to be whoever had been attacked. When I made it towards the front of the crowd, I saw who it was. Justin and Nearly-Headless Nick were frozen. Harry was standing next to them, looking terrified.

-

I sat in the common room, waiting for Harry to return. After he was caught at the scene of the crime, he was taken to Dumbledore's office to be questioned. This was the second time that he had been caught in front of someone that had been petrified.

Hermione, Ron, Fred, George, and Neville sat in there with me.

"What do you think that they're going to do?" Ron asked everyone.

"Probably expel him." I muttered.

"They don't have any proof!" Ron said.

"They found him in front of the petrified bodies Ron!" Hermione said. "They probably think that it's him!"

We sat in silence for a little while longer, thinking of everything that could go wrong in this situation.

"Would anyone care for a licorice wand?" Fred asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes, probably annoyed that, even in times like this, Fred couldn't take anything seriously. Finally, after a while, Harry returned to the common room.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"I'm not in trouble," he said. "I was with Hagrid only minutes before the attack happened, so they know that it couldn't have been me."

We all sighed with relief, knowing that he was going to stay at the school.

It's funny how I wasn't even caught at the scene of the crime and people were coming up with theories on what I had been doing to help Harry petrify those people. I heard several people whispering about how Harry and I were the heirs of Slytherin, even though they thought that we couldn't hear them.

"I heard that she was getting the monster hidden while he stayed back-" Hannah Abbot whispered rather loudly to another Hufflepuff the following morning. However, when she saw me looking, she coughed loudly and acted like she was reading.

This seemed to be the common theory throughout the school, everyone truly believed that we were the heirs of Slytherin.

"So, who are you going to get next?" Fred asked us.

"How's that monster been treating you Rosie?" George asked.

I thought that it was kind of funny, but Harry didn't find it that comical. I think that he cared too much about what other people thought of him. I guess I didn't because I knew what was true and they didn't.

The one thing that brightened up my day was to see Lockhart at lunch. He had skipped breakfast that morning and I assumed it was out of embarrassment. At the teacher's table, there was no mistaking this teacher and he was certainly a sight that day. His hair, usually blonde, was now a neon pink and green color and was standing on end. His skin, usually flawless, was covered in several multicolored polka-dots.

When I saw him, I couldn't help but laugh. Fred, George, and I all gave each other high fives as we saw him try to conceal himself from everyone. Even Harry, who was down about the whole heir of Slytherin thing couldn't help but smile.


	13. Chapter 13

The Polyjuice Potion was nearly complete. We were missing only one ingredient.

"We're going to have to get a piece of the person that you're turning into," I said.

"What do you mean a piece?" Ron asked. "Like an arm or something?"

I rolled my eyes and said, "No, like a piece of hair or something."

We had already decided who all we were going to become. It had to be a person that was fairly close to Draco so we could get some information out of him. Ron and Harry said that they were going to become Crabbe and Goyle - we were going to have to get them out of the picture for a while considering that they were staying behind - and Hermione was going to become some other Slytherin girl. I decided that I was going to be Pansy Parkinson, much to my own disgust.

Hermione already had a piece of hair that she was going to use, but Ron and Harry had to go get their part now. I decided that it was best that I also go get a piece now, which might not be too much of a struggle.

I found Pansy in the hallway alone. I stood around the corridor, waiting for the perfect moment. I managed to put a strong sleeping spell on her and I quickly ran to get a piece of hair from her. After getting my piece, I hid her in a nearby closet and went back to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

When I got there, everyone else was already there.

"No trouble?" I asked Ron and Harry.

"None at all," Harry smiled and handed over the hair.

Once I placed each piece of hair into seperate cauldrons, they immediately began to bubble and turn into a mud-like liquid. It looked disgusting.

"Well..." I muttered. "Bottoms up!"

I drank all of the potion in one horrific gulp and felt the effects only seconds after I drank it. My skin felt bubbly and I quickly ran into one of the bathroom stalls. Everyone else followed suit.

I felt my hair slowly shorten and my body began to become slightly larger. My uniform began to feel a little tight and my face felt like it was stretching. After a few minutes of this odd sensation, I felt almost normal again. I changed into the Slytherin uniform that we managed to find in an old supply closet and I stepped out of the stall.

"Ugh," Harry, now sounding strange, said. "I feel disgusting..."

I turned to see Harry, but was stunned to see Goyle standing before me. Beside him stood Ron, now Crabbe.

"Ew!" Ron said looking at me. "You look hideous!"

"You're telling me," I muttered. "Hermione are you ready?"

"Um, no," she said sounding worried. "You all go without me."

I shrugged my shoulders and turned to the others. We only had an hour, so we hurried along towards the Slytherin common room. Then we ran into a problem.

"Does anyone know where the Slytherin common room is?" Harry asked.

"Uh..." I thought. "No..."

Just before we could say anything else, a familiar person came into view.

"What are you three doing out here?" Draco asked. "Pigging out again Crabbe and Goyle?"

Harry and Ron looked at each other, dumbfounded.

"Why hello, Pansy," Draco said, looking uncomfortable, "Haven't seen you in a little while."

"Um, hi, Draco."

"What's the matter with you?" Draco asked, looking at me strangely.

Then I thought about who I was. I was Pansy Parkinson, the girl that had a serious thing for Draco or something. Why did I have to choose her?

"Um, I just don't feel well, _baby_." I said.

He looked me up and down and then began to walk in another direction, looking somewhat repulsed.

"Are you all coming or what?" he said back to us.

We all looked at each other and immediately began to follow Draco. We weren't really sure where he was going, but it didn't really matter. As long as we could question him.

We headed down towards the dungeons and then entered the common room after Draco gave the password. When we got in there, we saw that the entire room was filled with Slytherin banners and all kinds of antique looking furniture.

We all sat down on the couches, I sat a little too close to Draco for my comfort and Harry and Ron sitting on the opposite couch.

"Did you hear about Weasley's father?" Draco laughed. "Apparently he's getting fined for that flying car that Potter and Weasley flew into the school. I think that the damned Muggle lover should just be fired."

I looked at Ron who looked as though he was going to kill Draco if he continued any further, but Harry elbowed him to try to get him to stop. Draco didn't really notice because he was too busy complaining about other people.

"Then there are the Potters!" he said, all of our attention was directed at him instantly. "Harry Potter just thinks he is so fantastic, giving out autographs all the time. Famous Potter just can't escape it! And his sister-"

I shot a look at him, ready for the insult. But it didn't come.

"And people think that they are the heir of Slytherin!" he said, instead, "It's patheric!"

We all were silent, waiting for him to finally tell us who it was.

"I wish that I knew!" he said. "Then I could probably help them get rid of the Mudbloods in this school!"

"You must have some idea on who it is," Ron said hopefully.

"You know that I don't Goyle," he snarled. "Father won't tell me anything except that it was opened fifty years ago and that someone was killed last time... it's only a matter of time before someone is killed here. I hope that it's Granger..."

Ron's fists slowly became white as he clenched his fists in anger. Then I saw something appear on Harry's forehead that warned us of our time limit. His scar slowly began to show and Ron's hair was slowly turning red. I watched as my hair began to grow and change back to red.

"We have to go," Ron said as he all but ran out of the room.

I started to run out of the room too and I heard Draco following behind me.

"When did you get green eyes?" he asked.

"I, uh, used a spell."

He looked at me strangely, "Didn't know you were smart enough-"

"I'll be back in a minute!" I said, before sprinting out.

I quickly caught up to Ron and Harry who were waiting for me in a nearby corridor, both were almost back to their normal selves. When we reached the bathroom, I almost looked normal again.

"That was close," Harry said as he put his glasses back on.

"You're telling me," I muttered.

"Getting cozy with Malfoy, Rose?" Ron snickered.

"You're hilarious," I said with a straight face. "Hermione, what are you doing?"

We all looked over to the stall that Hermione was in and saw Myrtle floating nearby.

"I'm not coming out..." Hermione cried.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"It's really bad," Myrtle laughed. "Wait until you see!"

Hermione stepped out of the stall and I saw what Myrtle had been talking about. Instead of the Slytherin that she had intended on turning into, she stood in front of us looking like a cat.

"She had a cat," Hermione cried. "That wasn't her hair that I got."

Hermione started sobbing. Ron walked over to he and hugged her. I walked over towards the book that we had for the potion and flipped through the pages to find what I was looking for.

"Well, the effects should wear off soon, right?" Harry asked.

I frowned as I read through the instructions and everything else about the potion. It wasn't good.

"Right?" Harry repeated.

"The potion was only intended for human use..." I frowned. "It says that the results can be dangerous if you use anything else..."

Hermione cried even more when she heard me. We weren't sure how long it was going to stay in effect, do she could be like that for a while...

How were we going to explain this one?


	14. Chapter 14

After a few minutes, we all brought Hermione up to the hospital wing in hopes of helping her condition. She sobbed the entire way, but we all managed to shield her from the public view - it wasn't exactly easy to explain what happened, not to mention the fact that we had to lie about the whole situation.

When everyone returned to the school, people assumed that she had been attacked over the break and several people were trying to visit her in the hospital wing.

After we had visited her just a week later, we ran into something in the corridors. They had been flooded again for some odd reason and the water appeared to be coming from Myrtle's bathroom. We went in there to see what was going on.

"Myrtle!" I called. "What's up with all of this water?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" she screamed at me. "Oh, it's you three..."

"What's your deal?" Harry asked her.

"Oh, some person thought that it would be funny to through a book at my head and-"

"Wouldn't it just go through?" Ron asked.

Her face twisted up in anger and she flew into into Ron's face.

"LET'S JUST THROW BOOKS IN MYRTLE'S FACE BECAUSE SHE CAN'T FEEL IT, RIGHT?" she screamed at Ron.

Ron's eyes became large and he stepped back a few feet when Myrtle floated away from him. I looked down and saw a book laying in a large puddle of water and went to go pick it up.

"Don't touch that!" Ron said, grabbing my arm.

"Why not?" I asked him.

"It's probably dangerous, why else would someone throw it in a toilet?"

"It's a book," Harry rolled his eyes and picked the book up.

He opened it and it turned out to be completely empty. All it had on it was the name T. M. Riddle printed on the cover of it.

"I know that name!" Ron said. "He won an award for special services to the school fifty years ago!"

Harry raised an eyebrow at him.

"And you know that how?" I asked him.

"I had to polish off his award a million times when I had detention..." Ron muttered.

We took the book from the bathroom and left the room.

-

"So, I'm pretty sure we need to prank Lockhart again..." George told me during lunch later that day.

"And why is that?" I asked him as I bit into my apple.

"Well, you see-" George said.

"-we enjoyed seeing Lockhart in total misery during class-" Fred said.

"-you know, before break and all, it was hilarious," George said as he nodded his head.

"So naturally, we must continue this-"

"You were in on it the first time, so you have to help us."

I nodded, trying to understand their weird identical twin logic. It was kind of weird that they finished each other sentences.

"Okay, so what do you have in mind?" I asked.

"We were kind of hoping that you had something-" Fred said as he looked over to his brother.

"You see, we haven't really come up with anything since the candy-changing-your-appearance thing..." George said.

"And you're good with magic and everything-"

"Why thank you!" I smiled and took another bite out of my apple.

"So, do you have any ideas?" Fred asked me.

"Hmmm..." I thought. "Well, I know that Lockhart's greatest treasure is himself, so we'll have to start there."

Fred and George nodded and I looked up at the teacher's table where Lockhart was talking enthusiastically to Snape, who looked as bored as I do when I'm in History of Magic. When he saw me, he glanced over at Lockhart again and rolled his eyes. I smiled up at him knowingly, and returned back to the conversation I was having.

"We already did something with his appearance though," Fred said.

"Yeah, but that was funny!" I said. "Not to mention the fact that his greatest prize is himself - he loves himself!"

Fred nodded in agreement and decided that we would have to do something else that would effect his appearance because that was the ultimate attack when it came to Lockhart.

"I think I have an idea..." George smiled deviously at me.

Fred, George, and I stood around a table in the common room with our latest creation in front of us. It was an object that not only effected a person's appearance, but also their own personality.

"You're a genius, you know," George smiled at me.

"I didn't come up with this!" I said.

"Yeah, but we couldn't have made it ourselves..." Fred said as he picked up the small candy and smiled at it.

The product that we made was something of our own creation. It looked like an ordinary piece of candy, similar to that of a mint, nothing all that special about it. But, when someone ate it, it made them speak in a very high-pitched voice that wouldn't go away for what we guessed to be a couple days or so, we weren't really sure. We tested it out on ourselves, but we also had the only cure for it.

"This is going to be brilliant..." Fred admired the candy piece.

We left the common room shortly after and made our way towards the Great Hall just before dinner. We planned on adding the candy onto his plate to make sure that he would get it. Fred went up there alone and set it down, making sure that it was in the right spot.

When he sat back down at the Gryffindor table, people began to file in slowly.

"Hey, where have you been?" Neville asked me as he sat down across me. "Harry and Ron were looking for you earlier."

"Oh, I was with Fred and George," I told him.

"What are you three up to?" he asked me with a smile on his face. "Who's the victim now?"

"Oh, you'll see," I smiled at him.

Shortly afterwards, as if on cue, Harry and Ron came into the Great Hall and sat down on my left side, Fred and George on my right. I couldn't help but smile when I saw Lockhart strut into the room.

"Where have you been?" Ron asked me. "We were looking for you."

"She was with us ickle Ronnie-kins," Fred told him.

"Doing what?" Harry asked, looking slightly concerned.

"You'll see in a few minutes," I said as I looked up at the teacher's table.

"I'm worried about you." Ron said. "Hanging around Fred and George cannot be healthy."

"Okay, Percy," George said. "Rose can be around whoever she wants."

Ron went red in the face and turned his attention down to his plate.

"Why were you two looking for me?" I asked Harry.

"Oh, we found something out," Harry lowered his voice. "Remember how we said that Riddle owned the book that we found?"

I nodded as he continued.

"Well, the award in the trophy room is dated to be about fifty years ago."

"So?" I asked him, not getting the point.

"The Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago," Ron whispered over to me.

"The book is blank though," I said. "It can't tell us anything about what happened."

"Or can it?" Ron asked.

"We think that Riddle is hiding something in the book," Harry said. "And there must be some way that we can find out what is in it."

I nodded then I felt someone nudge me in the shoulder. I looked over to George who was looking up at the teacher's table.

"Look, he's about to eat it," he told me.

You couldn't really tell if the pill had taken effect at first because of the noise that was in the room, but the look on Lockhart's face when he started talking to Snape suggested that it had worked. His face drained of all color and he began to panic, alerting the whole school of what happened to him.

"What is going on," he squeaked.

Right when he heard his squeaky voice, he covered his mouth with his hands. Several people started laughing, and soon enough, the entire room was laughing as Lockhart continued to talk.

"This isn't funny at all!" he squeaked. "I will find out who did this!"

He ran out of the Great Hall in a flash and the laughing still continued. I even noticed Snape who looked like he was ready to laugh any minute, but was holding it back. Right when he was out of view, I turned over to see Fred and George smiling at their success. We all gave each other high-fived and continued to laugh with the rest of the school.


	15. Chapter 15

Hermione had been released from the hospital and was ready to get back on the case as to who had opened up the Chamber of Secrets. So far, we had gone off to assume that this Riddle guy had probably gotten this reward because he had discovered who had opened it fifty years ago. So, we were all determined to figure out what this diary had been hiding, but it was no use, nothing had become of it.

Something else that we noticed was that the attacks had stopped for a long time, maybe the heir of Slytherin was afraid to attack anyone else in fear of being caught or something. Lockhart, on the other hand, believed that he was the one keeping the heir from doing anything. I overheard him talking to McGonagall the other day, his voice still slightly squeaky.

"I probably scared him off, you see," Lockhart squeaked. "He knew that it was only a matter of time before I caught him!"

"Yes, I'm sure that you just terrified him with that squeaky voice, Gilderoy," she said as she rolled her eyes.

Unfortunately, this didn't seem to damper Lockhart's mood in the slightest. It was on the morning of February the fourteenth that I discovered this. I was walking down to the Great Hall that morning with Neville.

"It's a shame Lockhart's voice is going back to normal," Neville said. "His class was very amusing with it."

"I know, it was just what I needed after History of Magic," I said in agreement.

Then, when we walked into the Great Hall, we saw something that horrified me. The entire room was decorated in pink hearts and ribbons for Valentine's Day. Worst of all, Lockhart was wearing an outfit that matched the room that he was in. Beside him, I saw the teachers all giving him looks of amusement and disgust.

"Happy Valentine's Day everyone!" Lockhart said as we sat down at our table. "Today there will be little dwarfs going around the school delivering little messages of love, so if you want to send that special person a little message, talk to them! I know that I've already gotten forty-six messages today, so be ready! And I'm sure you could talk Professor Snape into making a little love potion!"

I looked over at Snape who looked as though he would kill anyone that asked him to make any kind of love potion today and all of the other teachers that seemed to be humiliated with their fellow coworker.

"Hello love!" Fred and George said to me as they sat down on either side of me.

"Hello dears," I laughed at them.

"Planning on sending someone a dwarf to confess your love-" Fred said.

"You know it," I said sarcastically.

"Sending one to Longbottom?" George teased.

"We're only friends." I said, rolling my eyes.

-

Harry, Ron, Hermione and I were walking down the corridor when a dwarf walked up to Harry.

"Musical Valentine for Mr. 'Arry Potter." grumbled the dwarf.

This was the absolute worst time for Harry to receive his Valentine because, at that exact moment, Draco, Crabbe and Goyle were walking towards us.

"Go away." Harry growled at the dwarf.

"I got to deliver yer Valentine." said the dwarf. And he started singing:

" _His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,_

 _His hair is as dark as a blackboard._

 _I wish he was mine, he's really divine_ ,

 _The hero who conquered the Dark Lord."_

Harry went red as Draco and his minions walked past us. Draco burst out laughing, as did Crabbe and Goyle.

Ginny was walking over to Harry when Draco sneered at her, "I don't think Potter liked your Valentine very much."

Poor Ginny buried her face in her hands and ran off towards the Gryffindor common room, crying.

"Well done Draco." I narrowed my eyes. Draco narrowed his too. We were looking like that at each other for a while until we were interrupted.

"'Scuse me." the dwarf that just sang to Harry turned to me. "You Rose Potter?"

I blinked before answering, "Y-yes. Why?"

"Valentine fer ya." the dwarf said and he handed me an envelope.

I gave out a sigh of relief. _Thank goodness it's not a singing Valentine_ I thought to myself.

"Thanks." I smiled at the dwarf as he walked away towards Dean Thomas.

"Open it!" Hermione said excitedly.

Forgetting that Draco was still staring there, I tore open the cream envelope and took out a piece of paper. On the piece of paper was a long list of cheesy pick-up lines.

"Oh my." I hit my face with my hand and handed the piece of paper to Hermione.

" _I must need Occlumency, because I can't get you out of my thoughts_." Hermione read the first line.

"Sweet Merlin!" I buried my face in my hands and felt myself going bright red. "Personally, I would have preferred Harry's poem."

" _Your smile is like Expelliarmus - simple yet disarming_." Hermione read on.

I was cringing, I just wanted to melt onto the floor and remain as a puddle for everyone to step on.

"Alright, last one." Hermione said, getting to the bottom of the page. " _If you were a Dementor, I'd become a criminal just to get your kiss_."

"That's a good one." said Ron.

"What's a Dementor?" I asked, taking my beet-red face out of my hands.

"You don't know what a Dementor is?" Draco sneered.

"Go away." I rolled my eyes at him.

"They're Azkaban guards." Ron answered.

"Azkaban?"

"You don't know what Azkaban is either?" Draco was laughing, as were Crabbe and Goyle.

"Just go away Draco!" I sneered.

Draco gave me a dirty look, but he still didn't leave.

"Azkaban is wizard prison." explained Ron.

"Oh." I said, embarrassed. "I still don't get the whole 'I'd become a criminal just to get your kiss' thing."

"You don't need to worry about that. Those pick-up lines were terrible anyway." Malfoy spat. "I'll bet you anything Longbottom wrote them. Come on guys, let's go." Draco said before he, Crabbe and Goyle set off.

"Who were these from anyway?" Harry asked, taking the cream piece of paper from Hermione.

"It doesn't say." I answered. "And I'm glad it doesn't. I don't think I'd be able to look that person straight in the eyes ever again."

"I still think that dementor one was pretty good." Ron said.

We continued off to class and I wondered who could have possibly sent me that, but was stopped by another dwarf that was pulling on my leg.

"Um...hello..." I said, looking down at the struggling elf.

"I have a present for you Miss!" it squeaked.

"Great. Another one." I muttered.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione stopped when they saw that I wasn't with them anymore and laughed when they saw what was happening. The elf handed me a red rose, and a small note. I quickly slipped the note in my pocket when I read who it was from, and then after thanking the Elf, I walked over to my brother and friends with a red face.

"That's thoughtful." Hermione said, eyeing the red rose.

"Anything's better than the previous one." Harry snickered.

"Who is it from?"

"No idea."

-

"I think I'm going to bed." Harry said as he walked up the stairs leading to his dorms. "I might try to look at that diary."

I was sitting in the common room that night doing homework with Hermione. It was History of Magic, so naturally she was doing all of the work. I did good in all of my other classes, but that one just killed me.

"So, who do you think those Valentine's gifts were from?" Hermione said when she put her quill down.

"I have no idea, I've been trying to figure it out though." I lied, and went back to work in a hurry. When I looked up again, I saw her giving me a strange look.

"What?" I asked her nervously.

"Oh, nothing." she said, but continued to stare at me suspiciously. "I just think you know who it is and you just don-"

She was about to keep bothering me about it, but stopped when three people burst into the room.

"Would you two quit it!" Ron said swatting at his twin brothers.

"Ickle Ronnie-kins got mad because we sent him a Valentine's gram that said that it was from Mum," Fred told Hermione and me.

"Why would you do that?" Hermione asked.

"Because it's humiliating when your mum says that no one could possibly love him more than she does because of his bed wetting," Fred said.

"What?" Hermione asked. "Why would you say that?"

"Because it's funny," George said. "Well, it was for a minute anyway."

Ron mumbled something and went up to his dorm because he didn't want to talk to anyone. Fred and George jumped over the couch and sat down near where Hermione and I were sitting.

"So, did you two get any Valentine's grams?" Fred asked.

"I didn't, but Rose got two!" Hermione said, giving me another look.

"Did she now?" Fred asked. "How interesting."

"Was it from the love of your life, Longbottom?" George teased.

"No it was from Snape." I said, flatly and went back to my homework.

"Don't ever joke about something like that - it's disturding!" Fred said, covering his ears.

"Oh come on, Potter." George said dramatically, "I thought we were friends! You _have_ to tell me!"

I continued to ignore them.


	16. Chapter 16

"It was Hagrid!" Harry said running down into the common room.

Fred, George, Hermione, and I looked up at him, not expecting him. Shortly behind him was Ron, who looked mortified.

"What was Hagrid?" Fred asked.

"Um…nothing…" Harry said.

"What did he do?" George asked.

"Hagrid was the one that…gave Harry that book for Christmas…" I lied.

"Why is this a shock?" Fred asked looking from Harry to me.

"It's not really, I just wasn't expecting it to be him," Harry said.

"Okay…" Fred and George said.

Harry and Ron sat down in the chairs and waited until Fred and George both left for bed not too long afterwards.

"Hagrid was the one that opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago!" Harry told us.

"Where do you get that it was Hagrid?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, you were in your room," I said. "Are you sure that you weren't just dreaming?"

"I wasn't dreaming Rose!" Harry said. "It came from this book!"

"It's blank Harry…" Hermione said.

"Not when you write in it!"

Harry went on to explain that when you write something in it, Tom Riddle will respond to you. Then he said that Riddle brought him back in time to show him what happened fifty years ago with the Chamber of Secrets and who had opened it.

"It explains why Hagrid was expelled, after all, he never really told us why," Ron said.

None of us really wanted to believe that Hagrid was the one that had opened up the Chamber of Secrets, but he was expelled during that time. The only proof that we really had was what Harry had seen through the diary. We were going to ask him, but we decided that it probably wouldn't be a very good idea.

We thought over it for the rest of the day during all of our classes, but I was under the impression that Hagrid had been framed. I talked about it with Harry and Ron during Potions class later that day.

"I really don't think it was him," I said. "Think about it - he would have been sent to prison or something. There is no way that Dumbledore would let him stay at Hogwarts!"

"That is a good point, but why else would he be expelled?" Ron asked me.

"I'm not really sure, but-Neville, you're only supposed to put in two sprigs of Wolfsbane, not three!"

Neville quickly grabbed the extra ingredient that he almost dropped into his cauldron, catching it just in time.

"Thanks," he said, sounding relieved that he had actually been able to stop himself.

"Five more minutes!" Snape called out to the class.

Everyone started to rush to finish, I had been finished moments ago and judged that my potion was as perfect as it usually was. Neville quickly waved his wand and the potion was complete. A couple of minutes later, Snape began to observe everyone's potions individually.

As Snape stepped towards Seamus's potion, there was a sudden explosion that happened as soon as Snape looked at it.

"Ten points from Gryffindor…" he muttered as he waved all of the mess clean.

He continued on, examining each potion carefully. Most everyone had done something wrong with their potion, including Harry and Ron who each had managed to make their potion a different color. Snape shook his head and moved towards Neville's potion.

When he noticed that there wasn't anything wrong with it, he continued on to mine. As usual, mine was perfect.

"Excellent, Miss Potter." he mumbled. "As per usual."

"Do I get any points?" I said, putting on a false smile showing that I knew that we wouldn't.

"You're hilarious." he half-smiled as he walked on.

"Nice try," Neville said sarcastically.

"Hey, it's worth a shot."

-

The following week, all of the second years were pulled to the side to plan out our classes for the following year.

"This is so difficult!" Hermione said. "This could affect our future in so many ways!"

"Hermione," I said. "We're only planning out classes, it's not that big of a deal."

I was kind of hoping that we were going to be able to drop some of the classes that we had now, but apparently we had to keep our old classes along with the ones that we had now.

"I wish I could drop Potions." Harry muttered as he looked at the schedule.

"I like Potions." I said. "I would keep that even if we had the option to drop it."

"That's only because you're best in the class!" Ron said. "You're the only Gryffindor that Snape actually cares for. Or doesn't hate anyway."

I wasn't really sure what to pick and apparently I wasn't the only one. Several other people were just randomly picking classes because they didn't really care which ones they ended up in. I just picked out the classes that I thought sounded decent and randomly picked the others. Harry and Ron copied down the ones that I put and Hermione signed up for them all.

"What did you put?" Neville asked. "Divination or Muggle Studies?"

"Um." I said going through my list. "I put Divination, but I'm not really sure what it is. I think it has to do with fortune telling or something."

"Oh, okay." Neville said looking carefully at his own list. "Which one should I go with?"

"Put Divination," I said. "I imagine that Muggle Studies would be terrible."

A couple weeks later I walked into the common room to run into Neville on my way through the door.

"Sorry!" he said and helped me up from the floor. "Do you know where Harry is?"

"I think that he's at Quidditch practice, he should be getting off soon," I said. "Why?"

"Follow me," he said dragging me up to the boy's rooms.

I walked into the room and it looked like a tornado had just gone through it. Clothes and books lay everywhere, all of which belonged to Harry.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I don't know, I just found it like this," he said. "It looks like whoever did this was looking for something."

I searched through everything, trying to decide what was taken. Then it dawned on me. The diary was missing.

"Oh no…" I said to myself.

I heard someone coming into the common room and Neville and I quickly ran down the steps. Harry was walking into the room with his broom in hand.

"What's wrong?" he asked looking at the two of us.

"Harry, someone has gone through your stuff and something is missing," I said, trying not to give anything away to Neville.

Neville ran back up to the room and I followed closely next to Harry, trying to tell him quietly.

"Harry…it's the diary…" I whispered.

His eyes got wide as he came into the room and saw the destruction in front of him.

"Oh no…" he said.

Today was the Quidditch game between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, a sure win from Gryffindor in everyone's opinion.

"There is no possible way we can lose," Wood said. "Unless that bludger decides to act up again…"

"Do you doubt our skills, Oliver?" Fred asked him.

"I am deeply offended!" George said, throwing his hand against his heart.

Oliver rolled his eyes and went back to breakfast. After everyone was done, I joined Harry, Ron, and Hermione who were all walking towards the Quidditch pitch.

Then I heard something.

"Kill this time…let me rip…tear…"

Harry and I looked at each other in horror and stopped in our tracks.

"What is it?" Ron asked.

"That voice," we said together. "Didn't you hear it?"

Ron and Hermione just looked at each other in confusion. Then Hermione's eyes got wide.

"That's it! I think I've just understood something!" she announced. "I've got to go to the library!"

She ran off in the opposite direction, leaving us all confused. We decided that it was just Hermione being her normal self and made our way towards the Quidditch field.

Harry left us when we got close to the field and Ron and I made our way into the stands. I sat down next to Ron and Neville as usual and waited for the game to start.

"Where's Hermione?" Neville asked after a few minutes.

"Library," Ron said, watching the teams go onto the field.

From the distance I could see Harry getting ready to take off, but someone ran onto the field and was yelling something. It was Professor McGonagall.

"What's going on?" I asked and stood up along with the rest of the crowd.

"This game has been cancelled!" McGonagall said over the megaphone.

I made my way down to the field as everyone began to leave the stands. I wanted to see what was going on. There was a large crowd around McGonagall who was talking to Harry about something.

"What's happened?" I asked George who stood at the edge of the crowd.

"Someone's been attacked," he said. "That's what McGonagall said anyway."

I immediately started to panic, remembering the voice that I had only heard moments ago in the castle.

"Who was it?"

"I have no idea," George said. "She hasn't given any names."

I made my way through the crowd, Ron grabbing onto my shirt in attempt to stick with me. We finally got to the center when I heard McGonagall say something to Harry.

"You better come with me," she said. "You two also," she said to Ron and me.

McGonagall quickly made it through the crowd of people trying to make it back into the castle and we made our way to the hospital wing.

"There's been a double attack this time," she told us when we made it to the door. "This may be a little bit of a shock."

When she opened the door, my mouth dropped. On one bed I noticed that a girl from Ravenclaw had been petrified, but the real shock was next to her.

It was Hermione.


	17. Chapter 17

Hermione was laying on a hospital bed, completely stiff and holding a mirror in one of her hands.

"We found her near the library…" Professor McGonagall said. "Do any of you know what she was doing?"

I thought back to the last time we had spoken. She didn't really say what she was doing in the library, but she seemed like she had just figured out something and wanted to check on it.

"No," I told her, still looking at Hermione's body. "She just said that she wanted to check on something in there."

Professor McGonagall nodded and motioned for us to follow her. We had to go back to the Gryffindor Tower and stay there until she returned with further instruction. When we got to the common room, everyone jumped to us at once, eager for information.

"Who was it?" Neville asked me.

Everyone went silent and stared at us.

"Hermione and Penelope Clearwater," I said.

We all waited around quietly for Professor McGonagall to return to tell us what exactly we were going to be doing now. Everyone was talking amongst themselves, trying to figure out what was going to happen next.

"What if they close down Hogwarts?" Dean asked. "Will we have to go to another school then?"

"There is no way I can go back to living with Gran all the time," Neville said. "She drives me mad during the summer and that's only a few months!"

"Who are we going to test out our pranks on?" Fred asked.

"We could still use the family," George suggested.

"This is true." Fred nodded.

"We cannot go back to living with the Dursleys all the time," I said. "There is no way I can go back to that."

"I would go mad." Harry said.

"You could live with us!" Ron said.

"I don't think that your mum would appreciate that," I said. "Your mum already has enough to deal with."

"Oh, she won't mind!" Fred said.

"She probably wouldn't even notice," George said. "We could even hide you in the attic!"

"Oh, that's fun," Harry laughed.

"Just like the old days," I said thinking back to that old broom cupboard under the stairs.

Then the portrait door opened up and McGonagall stepped through with a scroll of parchment. Everyone went silent as soon as she stepped into the room, ready to listen to her every word.

She cleared her throat and opened up the scroll and began to read:  
"All students will return to their House common rooms by six o'clock in the evening. No student is to leave the dormitories after that time. You will be escorted to each lesson by a teacher. No student is to use the bathroom unaccompanied by a teacher. All further Quidditch training and matches are to be postponed. There will be no more evening activities."

When she rolled up the parchment, there wasn't another sound in the room.

"It may be obvious to some that the school may have to close until the culprit is caught. If anyone has any information on who it is, please step forward."

She looked around the room for a moment and then left the room. The moment she left, everyone began to panic even more than they were before she was in the room. Lee Jordan was going on about how the only people that were being attacked were people that weren't in Slytherin. It was obvious to everyone that it was the heir of Slytherin that was up to this.

"Can't they just send all of the Slytherins home, that would solve all of our problems!" Lee said.

I went over to Harry and Ron who were talking about Hagrid.

"I think that it's time that we bring out Dad's cloak again," he said to me. "We need to ask Hagrid what happened when he was here."

I nodded in agreement and decided that we would wait until everyone was asleep to go and visit Hagrid's hut.

"Did you actually see Hermione in the hospital?" Dean asked me.

"Her and all of the other people that were petrified."

"And they have no evidence of who they think did it?" Seamus asked. "None of the victims have any clues on them or anything?"

"Yeah, doesn't Colin have that camera with him all the time," Dean said. "Maybe he took a picture of it!"

"They already checked that," I told him. "The camera practically exploded when they tried to look at it."

When everyone had gone to bed, we grabbed the cloak and began to make our way down to Hagrid's house. We couldn't move all that fast because we had to make sure that our feet were covered because we knew that the teacher's and ghosts were going to be guarding the hallways.

We weren't all that far from the Gryffindor Tower when Ron tripped and I fell down. Someone had seen me too because I saw them moving towards me.

"Keep going," I said under my breath. "I'll make something up."

"Okay," Harry whispered.

"Sorry," Ron said so quietly that I could hardy tell if he had said anything at all.

The person was now walking faster towards me so I had to think fast. I was laying on the ground and I started to stand up but hit someone in the process.

"Ow!" I said.

I looked up and saw Snape standing in front of me.

"What are you doing out here?" he said in an almost concerned toned.

"I guess that I was sleep walking," I lied.

"Do you realize what is going on in this school?" Snape said. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"Sorry, I just-"

"I don't want to hear it!" Snape said, grabbing onto my arm and half-dragging me back to the Gryffindor Tower. "You're going to stay in here, okay?"

"Okay, I-"

"Can you make sure that she doesn't leave the tower?" Snape asked the Fat Lady.

The Fat Lady looked like she had just been awoken from sleeping, but nodded at the teacher's request.

"What if the monster attacks one of the teachers?" I asked him.

"That's none of your concern," Snape said. "Just stay in the tower where you are safe, understood?"

"Yes, but I was just wondering-"

"You cannot use that cloak either," he said.

"I wasn't going to ask-"

"This isn't the time to talk Rose!"

There was a pause and I noticed something odd.

"Did you just call me Rose?" I asked him.

He opened his mouth to say something, but he stayed silent for only a moment.

"Goodnight," he said, closing the portrait.

I stood there for a moment, then I ran over to the window let me see Hagrid's house. I saw the door closing shut and I assumed that Harry and Ron had made it there.

I stood there for a while to see if I could make anything out, but then I saw two people walking towards the hut. One was Dumbledore and the other was someone that I didn't recognize. I hoped that Harry and Ron could hide themselves.

I walked over to the window to see what was going on outside. I looked out too and saw someone else walking towards Hagrid's hut. It was Lucius Malfoy. I saw Hagrid being taken from his house, Dumbledore walking not that far from him. They thought that he was the one that opened the Chamber of Secrets.

I waited to see if I could see any signs of Harry and Ron leaving the house for a while, but I was starting to get tired.

It was a while later when Harry and Ron came through the door to the common room. I was still sitting on the couch, practically asleep.

"What happened? I saw Hagrid being taken."

"Hagrid's being taken to Askaban," Harry said. "And Dumbledore's been told to step aside to let the Ministry do something about it!"

-

School was getting worse by the day without Dumbledore here. It was only a matter of time before everyone went insane from being on complete lockdown since all of the attacks too.

We were in Potions class when we started talking more about what was going to happen with Dumbledore gone now, although it was Malfoy that was doing most of the talking.

"I think that it should be you that becomes headmaster, Professor Snape," Draco said during class. "My father would definitely vote for you."

"No one cares" I snarled.

"Shut up you filthy little half-blood!" Malfoy snarled back at me.

"Mr. Malfoy!" Snape shouted at Draco, who shut his mouth immediately. "Enough!" he said, looking to Draco and me.

Everyone was silent for a moment, then Draco started talking again.

"I just think that it's great that all of the Mudbloods of the school are getting killed off," Malfoy muttered, looking in my direction.

"Just ignore him, Rose," Neville whispered beside me.

"Maybe the next one could get killed. It's a shame that Granger didn't-" Draco said to me.

I stood up from the chair, with my fist curled and raised, but was stopped by Snape before I could do anything I regretted.

"MISS POTTER!" Snape yelled, pulling me by my shoulders. "I will be seeing you after class."

I just looked at him and then returned to my seat.

The class ended not too long afterwards and Nearly Headless Nick came to escort the class out to lunch for that afternoon. I had to stay back though. When everyone had left, Snape looked up at me.

"What was that?" he asked slowly.

"I believe you saw what it was."

He glared at me for a minute, but then his eyes softened up and he looked down.

"Miss Potter, you do realize that if this school wasn't on lockdown, then I would have given you detention, right?"

"No you could not - I didn't really do anything. Besides, did you not hear what he said?" I asked him. "He basically said that all Muggle-borns should be killed! You can't tell me that you agree with that!"

He paused for a moment and looked down.

"No, I don't agree with that at all." he murmured. "But that does not give you the right to try to use violence. You should have said something-"

"And you would do what?" I asked him, already knowing the answer. "I don't know if you noticed, but my mother was a Muggle-born and it is an insult to her memory to not defend what she was. Some of the most brilliant witches and wizards come from Muggle families, just look at Hermione Granger!"

Snape seemed to be lost for words for a moment.

"I understand." Snape said. "But you shouldn't result to violence, you're a better person than that."

I was stunned - that was the first compliment that I had ever heard come out of Snape's mouth in the two years that I had been going to this school.

"I will let you off this time, since you didn't really cause any harm," he said. "But if you try to hit Mr. Malfoy again, don't expect me to be so lenient."

He stood up from his desk and walked towards the door. He motioned for me to follow him and I quickly caught up to him once we were in the hallway. It wasn't long before we made it into the Great Hall where the rest of the school was.

I walked over to my table and sat down next to Harry and Ron.

"Is it true that you tried to punch Malfoy in the face?" Fred asked me.

I nodded, still thinking about what Snape had said.


	18. Chapter 18

Later that day we had Defense Against the Dark Arts with Lockhart, I would rather have been anywhere else. As usual, Lockhart was going on about how much of an amazing wizard that he is and that he's fought off so many things in his lifetime. I have to say, it was getting rather old.

"And I ran through the forest and took out every single ghoul without a single scratch on me!" Lockhart told us, practically jumping up and down.

Everyone in the room looked extraordinarily bored with the entire class. No one wanted to learn when there was a large possibility of being attacked at any minute.

"Oh come on!" Lockhart said. "The culprit has been taken, you all have nothing to worry about!"

"Hagrid isn't the heir of Slytherin!" Dean said. "They have no evidence against him!"

"The Minister of Magic wouldn't have just taken away an innocent man, now would he?" Lockhart smiled. "Not that it really made a difference. I had the entire situation under control, it-"

"What the hell are you talking about?" I stood up. "You didn't have anything under control!"

"Miss Potter, no need to use such foul language-"

"You haven't heard foul yet, Lockhart," I snarled.

"Oh, my dear Rose, I understand that you have a bit of a rough time dealing with me," Lockhart nodded. "It's understandable! I intimidate you because I am so famous and-"

"Famous for what?" I said. "Writing a bunch of phony books and dressing like a complete and utter idiot?"

Lockhart went red in the face and I heard a few people start to laugh.

"You've crossed the line Miss Potter-"

"I honestly don't care."

-

"Rose, that was brilliant!" Ron said at dinner that night.

"You told off Lockhart?" Fred asked.

"You're my hero!" George said throwing his arm around me.

"He gets on my nerves," I said. "He always goes on about how he is a wonderful wizard, but he's not!"

We went on eating dinner and Harry told me something that Ron and he had noticed during class earlier that day. They had seen spiders crawling towards the Forbidden Forest and apparently Hagrid had told them to follow the spiders if they saw them.

"So we're going to go tonight?" I asked.

"Yeah, when everyone goes to sleep, we're going to follow the spiders."

Later that night we had to wait until all of the others went to bed before we could make it out of the castle. This time we all managed to make it towards Hagrid's hut.

When we got there, we burst through the door to find Fang sitting on the ground near the fire. He ran over to us just as we saw something else.

"Look!" Ron said, pointing to the wall.

Going down the wall and out of the window were several small spiders. We left the invisibility cloak in the hut as we took Fang into the forest with us. We followed them for a while inside of the dark forest, Ron flinching at every noise that was in there.

"Why are we following the spiders into the forest?" Ron asked. "It's forbidden for a reason - there could be werewolves or something in here."

"Stop being a baby," I muttered. "Hagrid told us to follow the spiders, remember?"

We all took out our wands and continued following the spiders for a good ways until we reached what looked like a giant cave.

When we got into the cave, it appeared to be what I would imagine to be Ron's worst nightmare coming to life. The entire cave was filled wall to wall with giant spiders. The biggest one crawled to us, Ron stepped back a few feet and tripped on the ground.

"You aren't Hagrid," the spider said as I helped Ron stand up.

"Um, no," Harry said.

"Kill them." the large spider muttered.

"Wait!" Harry said. "We were sent by Hagrid."

"Why would Hagrid send strangers here?"

Harry's face went pale as he looked around the cave further and I jumped into the conversation.

"He's in trouble," I told the spider.

"Aragog!" the other spiders chanted behind the large spider. "Let us eat them!"

"That's not creepy." I whispered sarcastically.

The large spider, who I assumed was Aragog, moved closer toward us and I noticed the many eyes that were on his face. He looked to be about ten times the size of the average spider.

"They think that he's been setting something on the students," Harry said.

"That's impossible - that happened years ago!" Aragog said. "Why else would I be forced to live out in this forest? They sent me away when that happened because they thought that I was the monster within the Chamber of Secrets."

"So, you've never harmed anyone at Hogwarts?" I asked. "And you aren't the monster?"

"No," he said. "I've never harmed anyone inside of Hogwarts. Hagrid would not allow me to roam the castle, so I couldn't. The only thing I ever heard about was the girl that was killed in the bathroom."

"Do you know what killed the girl?" Harry asked.

I looked around the cave and saw Ron's face that was filled with fear. He had told us before that his greatest fear was spiders, so that explained why he was so quiet.

"It's a creature that we spiders have feared for a long time."

"Well, what is it?" I asked.

"We don't speak of it!" the spider said irritably.

"Fine then." I muttered.

I felt Ron tugging on my shirt and I turned around to see him pointing ahead. When I looked at the spiders, I noticed how close they were getting to us. They were starting to surround us.

"Well." I said. "Aragog,it's been real, it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun - I think we better be off."

"Off to where?" Aragog asked. "You all don't think that I will be letting you leave, do you?"

We all looked at each other in disbelief, half-hoping that he was joking, but we knew that he wasn't. We started to back away slowly as the spiders moved closer towards us.

"Goodbye friends of Hagrid!" Aragog said.

I reached for the wand that I had in my pocket, but the spiders were faster. Harry, Ron, and I all ran out of the cave, hoping to move quickly enough to escape the spiders.

"What do we do?" Ron yelled.

Suddenly there was a blinding light in front of us and a loud noise that sounding like a car horn. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw that it was Mr. Weasley's flying car, driving itself around the forest.

The spiders cleared away from it and we all ran and jumped into the car, avoiding spiders in the process. Once we were inside, the car took off and it drove itself through the trees and out towards the castle. The large spiders behind us were keeping up though.

I took out my wand and started throwing every spell that I knew at them, hitting many of them by doing so. Harry joined me in sending curses towards the spiders, but many of them stuck with us.

By the time I saw the light from the moon coming in through the trees, I knew we were almost at the castle and away from the spiders at last. When we made it outside of the forest and we were in front of Hagrid's house, the car threw us out of it.

Fang, who was cowering in the back seat of the car, ran out of it and immediately to the door that led into Hagrid's house. When we got through the door, we saw the cloak sitting in the middle of the floor and grabbed it and headed back to the castle.

"Did you hear what Aragog said?" I asked them.

"I was too busy worrying about my life, so no," Ron said.

I rolled my eyes at him and went on.

"He mentioned a girl that was killed the last time the chamber was opened…"

"We already knew someone was killed Rose," Harry said. "That isn't exactly new information."

"Yes, but he said that she was killed in a bathroom."

"So?" Harry and Ron said together.

"You two are complete idiots!" I muttered. "Moaning Myrtle!"

Their mouths dropped open and they stopped walking. I had to stop too because I had to stay under the cloak.

"No way," Ron said.

"She does haunt the bathroom," I said. "Do you know of anyone else that was killed in a bathroom at Hogwarts?

We were all waiting around in the common room once again for news from McGonagall. She had told us earlier that she needed to talk with all of us.

"Do you think that Dumbledore is coming back?" Seamus asked.

"I doubt it," Dean said. "They haven't actually caught the Heir of Slytherin."

"That's true."

"Maybe they decided to cancel our exams." Neville said hopefully.

"I wish." I muttered.

After a few minutes, McGonagall came through the door and announced that the Mandrakes were fully grown and were going to be ready to bring back the people that were petrified tonight. Everyone cheered.

After the news, we all went down to the Great Hall to eat. Everyone was extremely happy that the Mandrakes were finished and everyone was going to be coming back from being petrified. That is, except for the Slytherins who remained quiet the entire time.

I looked up and saw Lockhart talking animatedly to Snape who didn't even appear to be listening, but staring around the room. When he saw me looking at him, he held up his hand to Lockhart and stepped down from the table.

Snape walked around for a little while, but ended up next to the Gryffindor table. When I saw him standing behind me, I turned to him.

"Is it true that you said something to Professor Lockhart?" Snape asked me.

"What have you heard?" I asked him.

"Well, I've heard from several people that you called him a fake in front of the entire class, but Lockhart tells me otherwise."

"What is he telling you?"

"He mentioned something about you being jealous of his fame and storming out of the classroom."

"That is definitely a lie," I said.

"Just making sure."

Snape walked away slowly, observing the tables around us as if he was interested in what was going on, though I knew that he wasn't.

"What was that about?" Ron asked me.

I looked around for a minute, wondering if he was actually talking to me.

"What?"

"Oh, I don't know," Ron said sarcastically. "Snape just strolls over here and has a decent conversation with you. What's his deal?"

"We've had 'decent conversations' before Ronald," I muttered. "Just because he doesn't talk to you, doesn't mean that he doesn't talk to anyone else."

"I just think that it's weird that he hates Harry so much, but he obviously likes you," Ron said.

"Maybe it's because I actually care about his class, unlike some people."

"It doesn't really make that much sense Rose," Harry said. "He hates me because he hated our dad, why wouldn't he hate you just as much for being his daughter?"

I looked over at my Potions teacher wondering why it was that he treated me so differently.


	19. Chapter 19

I was walking in a line behind Professor McGonagal, when I looked ahead to see Harry and Ron ahead of us and they weren't around a teacher. Apparently they had managed to get Lockhart away from them. They probably told him that his hair looked bad or something.

"Potter! Weasley!" she said. "What do you think that you are doing?"

"We were going to see Hermione in the hospital wing," Harry said.

I could tell by looking at my brother that he had just come up with that right on the spot. It wasn't a bad lie considering the fact that we were close to the hospital wing.

"Oh…" McGonagall said sounding a little bit sad. "That's understandable."

"Could I go with them?" I asked her. "I haven't gotten to see Hermione in a while…"

"Yes, you may…" McGonagall said while she wiped her eyes dry.

She walked us up to the hospital and then departed. The rest of the class continued on with her when we went into the hospital.

We sat alongside of Hermione's bed where she lay completely frozen. Once Madam Pomfrey left them alone, I turned to Harry.

"Now what were you all really going to do?" I whispered.

"We were about to go to ask Moaning Myrtle about how she died, but we were caught," Harry told me.

"How did you know that he was lying?" Ron asked.

"Harry's my brother," I said. "I know when he's lying."

We looked at Hermione in wonder. What if she had known who the attacker was? After all, she ran off to the library that day because she thought that she discovered something.

Then Harry grabbed for Hermione's hand, looking like he was trying to take it off.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"There's something in her hand," Harry said. "It's a piece of paper."

It took Harry a minute to pry the paper out of Hermione's hand, but it eventually came out. Once we had the paper, Harry smoothed it out and began to read silently. I looked over his shoulder and read it too.

 _Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it._

Underneath that was the word _Pipes_ that Hermione had written in.

"It's a basilisk!" I whispered. "That's what the monster is!"

"That doesn't make any sense," Ron said. "Look here - it says that whoever looks it in the eyes would die. No one here is dead."

"That's because no one has looked at it directly in the eyes!" Harry whispered.

"That's right!" I said. "Colin saw it through his camera, Justin saw it through Nearly-Headless Nick - he couldn't die again, so it didn't effect him that much - and Hermione and that Ravenclaw girl must have saw it through a mirror!"

"Brilliant!" Harry said.

"What about Mrs. Norris?" Ron asked.

"She must have seen it through the water that was on the floor that night!" Harry said.

We added up all of the other clues - spiders flee before it and Hagrid's roosters being killed - and it all made sense. Hermione must have figured out that the snake had been using the school's plumbing to move throughout which explained why we heard it in the ceiling.

"We need to tell Professor McGonagall!" I said.

Just then we heard her voice throughout the school.

"All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teacher's go to the staff room immediately!"

"Someone has been attacked!" I said.

We ran throughout the school towards the teacher's staff room to tell them what we had figured out. We hid behind the wall near the staff room and listened in to the conversation.

"Someone's been taken down to the Chamber," McGongall told the staff.

I heard panic within the room, but it all stopped within a minute.

"Who was it?" Snape asked, sounding slightly panicked. "Which student?"

"Ginny Weasley."

Ron grabbed onto my arm beside me. I knew how he felt - if it had been Harry, I would have panicked too. I looked over to him and saw his eyes getting watery. I grabbed onto his hand and tried to comfort him silently as I listened into the conversation more.

"We're going to have to send everyone home - we can't risk another attack," McGongall said sadly.

Then I heard a door burst open.

"What have I missed?" Lockhart asked.

"Ah, just the man that we needed," Snape snarled. "A first-year girl has been taken down to the Chamber, your moment has come."

"W-what?" Lockhart stammered.

I felt Ron squeeze onto my arm even more. I would be freaking out too if my sister's life depended on Gilderoy Lockhart.

"You've been bragging for a long time that you've known where the entrance to the Chamber is all along, so this shouldn't be a problem," Snape said.

"It's up to you Gilderoy," McGonagall said. "You must go there tonight."

I heard Lockhart whimpering, but he began to speak with false-courage.

"I'll go to my office and get ready." he mumbled.

I sat next to Harry, Ron, Fred, and George in the common room that night. Each one of the Weasleys were silent that night, fearing what was happening, or has already happened, to their only sister.

"Do you think that there is any chance that she is…okay?" Fred asked us.

Everyone was silent and Harry and I looked at each other, hoping that we could help the family.

"Yeah…" I said slowly. "She's a pure-blood…so maybe…"

I couldn't bring myself to say anymore. I knew that there was a strong chance that the monster had already killed her down in the Chamber, but I couldn't tell them that.

After a while of being silent, Fred and George went up to their room for the night. I doubt that they would get any sleep.

"We should go tell Lockhart what we know…" Ron said. "It could help…"

I was about to tell him that Lockhart probably wouldn't make it alive himself, but I knew that it wouldn't help.

"Yeah, let's go…" Harry said.

We walked through the hallways towards Lockhart's office. When we got there, I opened up the door to see Lockhart throwing a bunch of things into trunks.

"Um…what are you doing?" I asked him.

"Um, well, you see the thing is…" he stammered when he saw us. "I have to go, it's extremely important."

"More important than the life of Ginny Weasley, huh?" Harry said.

"What about all the things that you wrote about?" Ron said. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of expert on this sort of thing?

"He doesn't know anything," I said. "It's all a lie. He's a fake."

The color in Lockhart's face drained.

"You're right…" Lockhart said. "I didn't do any of those things. I'm not really good at anything…aside from Memory Charms that is. It's unfortunate that I'm going to have to do them now."

He whipped out his wand and pointed it at all of us, but I was faster.

"Expelliarmus!" I yelled.

His wand went flying in the air and Ron caught it in his hand and threw it out of the window. Lockhart panicked and threw himself against the wall and held up his hands as I pointed my wand directly at his face.

"It doesn't even matter!" he cried. "I don't know where the Chamber is anyway!"

"Well we do," Harry said. "Let's go."

We walked out of the room, I continued to point my wand at Lockart who was now shaking in fear. He was so pathetic.

When we made it to the bathroom, we found Myrtle floating around.

"Why hello," she said smiling at Harry.

"We came here to ask you how you died," Harry asked.

"Oh, it was awful!" she said. "I was killed right here in this stall. I remember I was crying in here because I was being made fun of for my glasses. Someone came into the bathroom and started talking in a very funny language - I couldn't understand it. When I opened the door to tell them to leave me alone, I died."

"How?" I asked her.

"I don't know," she whispered. "All I know was that there were two yellow eyes staring at me right over there."

We looked over to the sink. Harry continued to talk to her as I checked out the sink. Ron took over for Lockhart by pointing his broken wand at him.

"There's a snake on it…" I murmured. "Right here…"

"Say something in Parseltongue," Ron suggested. "Maybe it'll open."

"Um-open up?" Harry said to it.

"That was English," Ron said.

I concentrated on the little snake picture and tried to imagine if it were real. Then, at the same time, Harry and I spoke the same hissing noise.

"Open up," we said together.

The sink moved over to the side and a large hole was in its place. I pointed my wand at Lockhart again and said:

"You go first."

"W-why?" he said. "It seems like you have it all right, so I'll just be leaving-"

Ron stepped forward and pushed Lockhart down the hole, he screamed the entire way down. Once we heard him hit the bottom, we all jumped down the hole too.

It seemed to take forever to hit the bottom and it was completely dark down through the tunnel.

"What is up with all of these secret, underground rooms in this school," Ron muttered when we hit the bottom.

"Lumos!" I said and my wand lit up.

Harry and Ron lit up their wands too - it surprised me that Ron's could even do that spell without messing it up somehow.

"If you all see anything," I said. "Close your eyes immediately."

We all walked forward slowly. Lockhart stopped for a moment in front of me, but continued when I poked him in the back with my wand.

"Keep going," I said.

Lockhart whimpered, but kept moving forward. Then we saw something ahead of us. It was a large, transparent thing ahead of us in the tunnel. When we moved closer to it, we saw that it was just the skin from the snake. It was really big, so we knew that the basilisk was going to be about the same size if not bigger than this.

Then, without any kind of warning, Lockhart fell to his knees and cried.

"Get up," Ron said.

Lockhart jumped to his feet and tackled Ron until he was able to take Ron's wand from him. When he had hold of it, he pointed at us and smiled evilly.

"We're finished here," Lockhart snarled. "I'm going to take some of the skin back up to the school and tell them that I was too late to save the girl. You three went insane when you saw her dead down here - get ready to lose your memory children! Obliviate!"

The wand exploded on Lockhart, sending him flying backwards. Harry and me flew in the other direction towards the snake skin as the tunnel collapsed in front of us. When it stopped, there was a large mountain of rocks that separated Harry and me from Ron and Lockhart along with the exit of the school. We were trapped inside.

"RON!" I yelled. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" Ron said. "I don't know about Lockhart though, I think he's been knocked out!"

There was a pause and then Ron shouted at us again.

"What are we going to do now?"

Harry and I looked around the room and then at each other.

"We're going to keep going!" Harry shouted. "If we aren't back in an hour, well…"

"I'll just move these rocks out of the way!" Ron yelled back.

We walked on and eventually made it to a large stone door that had several snakes lining it. We both took a deep breath and together we said in a weird hiss:

"Open."


	20. Chapter 20

We stepped into the Chamber slowly, looking around quickly for any signs that someone was trying to attack us, but no one was…yet.

In front of us was a giant statue of a face. It was a man that had a very long beard that fell to the floor of the Chamber. I assumed that this was the face of Salazar Slytherin, being as he made the Chamber in the first place. Right under this statue there was a small girl with flaming red hair laying on the floor.

"Ginny!" Harry said and ran over to her unconscious body.

Even though I was happy to see that Ginny's body was still intact, the whole situation seemed like a set up. Why would they just lay Ginny's body in the middle of the chamber, completely unguarded.

"Ginny, wake up," Harry whispered.

Then I saw someone walking into the room and I pointed my wand directly at him. It was a boy that I had never seen before. He looked like he would be of age to go to Hogwarts, but there was something strange about him. The boy didn't seem to be real.

Harry hadn't noticed the boy yet and he didn't have his wand out. I ran in front of both him and Ginny and pointed my wand at him.

"Who are you?" I asked threateningly.

Harry stood up quickly behind me.

"Tom Riddle?" Harry asked.

My eyes grew wide, but I didn't put my guard down. Tom Riddle nodded and continued to stare from Harry to me.

"What do you want?" I snarled.

"Rose, it's fine!" Harry said. "This is Tom Riddle! He's the one that talked to me about the chamber before! He helped us!"

I shot a look at my brother and back to Riddle. I didn't really know who he was, but I didn't trust him.

"Then what's he doing here now?" I asked. "He should be dead…or at least older…"

"You don't have to talk about me like I'm not right here," Riddle smirked. "You remind me of your mother Rose Potter…"

I narrowed my eyes and lowered my wand. I stayed ready to pull it out at any moment though.

"You don't know anything about my mum," I said.

"I know that she was willing to put her life on the line to save the people that she loved," he said. "Much like you would have done just now."

"So you're saying that my life was just in danger, correct?"

Riddle smirked and moved forward a little bit more. He didn't answer my question.

"Tom, do you know what's wrong with Ginny?" Harry asked. "She's not waking up…"

"She's still alive."

I glared at him more, trying to figure out what he was.

"Are you some kind of ghost, Riddle?" I asked.

"More like a memory actually," he said slowly. "One that's been preserved in a diary for fifty years."

Riddle walked slowly around all three of us, watching us with a look of hunger on his face. There just wasn't something right about this guy.

"We need to get her out of here, Tom," Harry said trying to move Ginny himself. "There is a basilisk in here somewhere-have you seen my wand?"

Riddle held up Harry's wand in his hand and smirked.

"Oh, thanks," Harry said as he reached out to take it.

Riddle stepped back with Harry's wand in hand.

"Tom, give me my wand, we have to get out of here before the basilisk-"

"It will only call when it's called."

I pointed my wand at him quickly, but Tom was ready. He pointed his wand right back at me and smiled evilly.

"What do you mean when it's called, Riddle?" I snarled. "How do you know about this basilisk?"

"More than you ever will," he said.

I looked over to Harry whose eyes were wide open and he had a look of confusion on his face. Obviously he had trusted Riddle, but I thought differently. This man couldn't be trusted.

"What did you do to Ginny?" I asked him, still aiming at his chest.

"It's quite a long story actually," Riddle said, staring at me intently and pointing Harry's wand at me. "It all starts with this pathetic little girl writing every precious thought that she had into that diary. It was rather irritating to tell you the truth, but I put up with it."

"The diary?" Harry asked.

"Exactly Harry," Riddle said. "Ginny Weasley wrote in it all the time, and I wrote back to her. She just loved me. I helped her with all of her problems and she poured her soul into that diary. Every day I grew stronger as she told me her deepest fears and her darkest secrets. It was only a matter of time before I started to tell her some secrets of mine and started to put some of my soul into hers."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"Ginny opened the Chamber of Secrets…" I said slowly. "She did it all…and you made her!"

Riddle smiled at me, looking quite demented. Harry looked from Tom to me in complete disbelief.

"That's impossible…" he whispered.

"She didn't know she was doing it," Tom said. "She couldn't remember anything that she was doing. But after a while, she started to figure something out and she lost trust in the diary. That's when I met you Harry."

I looked over at Harry who looked horrified.

"You couldn't imagine the way I felt when I saw that was you," Riddle went on. "Harry Potter, one of the two people in the world that I was hoping meet!"

"Why did you want to talk to us?" Harry asked.

"Oh Ginny told me all about the two of you, especially you Harry! She just went on and on about your fascinating history! That's why I wanted to show you something wonderful that I had done here at Hogwarts. I wanted you to know that it was me that captured Hagrid-"

"We knew from the start that it wasn't him Riddle," I snarled. "It was obvious that you just framed him."

"It doesn't matter what you figured out you stupid little girl! Can't you see what's going on here! When I was sixteen, I preserved my self in a diary so that I could return to finish off Salazar Slytherin's noble work! I've won!"

"No you haven't, Tom," Harry said. "The Mandrakes are finished growing, all of the people that were petrified are going to be fine-"

"I don't care about the filthy little Mudbloods, can't you see! For months now, I've only had two target: both of you."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Don't you realize who I am?" he asked.

He then wrote his name into the air in fire with Harry's wand.

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then he waved the wand and the letters began to move around.

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

Both Harry and I had our jaws drop and the hand that held my wand dropped down. I regretted this action immediately when Riddle raised his wand towards me.

"Expelliarmus!" Riddle yelled.

I was immediately thrown back onto the ground where I landed flat on my back, my wand flying from my hands.

"Now that I have your attention, Rose Potter," Riddle smiled. "I am sorry to say that it is the end of you both. There is no one here to help you this time. Dumbledore's gone-"

"Dumbledore's not as gone as you think he is," Harry said.

Just at that moment, a giant red bird flew above us. It was carrying the Sorting Hat.

"Fawkes," Harry breathed.

"What?" I said as I picked myself off of the ground.

"It's Dumbledore's phoenix!" Harry said.

It dropped the hat into my hands and I looked at it. What was this supposed to do?

Riddle began to laugh at Fawkes who flew above us and the Sorting Hat that was in my hands. He then turned to the statue of Salazar Slytherin and began to talk to it.

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!"

The mouth of the statue opened up and something large began to slither out of it. It was the basilisk.

"KILL THEM!" Tom yelled.

Harry and I began to run away from the snake and we shut our eyes in the process to avoid its fatal gaze. We didn't get very far before Harry tripped and fell to the ground.

"HARRY!" I screamed.

I wanted to open my eyes to find where my brother had fallen so I could help him, but being dead wouldn't really be very useful at the moment.

"KEEP GOING!" Harry yelled. "AND KEEP YOUR EYES CLOSED!"

I couldn't leave Harry to die there, so I decided to make a distraction. I listened to where the snake was slithering and quickly ran towards it. I opened my eyes slightly to make sure that I wasn't going to run into it. It began to hiss in my direction and that's when I ran for it. I could hear the snake slithering behind me, it was gaining speed.

Then the snake made a noise that sounded like it was in pain.

"NOOOO!" Tom yelled. "Your bird may have blinded the basilisk, but it can still find you! AFTER THEM!"

"ROSE!" Harry yelled. "OPEN YOUR EYES, IT CAN'T KILL YOU!"

I opened my eyes and turned to see the snake trailing me. It wasn't far from me. As I was sprinting away from the snake, I saw Harry running at it with what appeared to be a sword. Where did he get that…?

Then I ran into a dead end. There was nowhere I could go and the snake was directly behind me. I turned around just as the snake bit directly into my left arm.

"ROSE!" Harry yelled when he saw that the snake had my arm.

The basilisk let go of me and turned to Harry. My brother took the sword that he was holding and stabbed it directly into the snakes mouth, making it fall to the ground.

Then I began to feel weak. The venom from the snake was quickly spreading throughout my body, and I could feel myself losing strength. I grabbed onto my arm to see the blood oozing out of it.

The last thing I heard was Tom Riddle screaming at Harry for killing the snake and Harry yelling my name.

Everything went black.

When I regained consciousness, I heard a screaming voice coming not that far away from me. On my arm sat Fawkes who was crying on my arm that once had a wound. I felt healed, but I still felt a little weak. I then noticed that I was laying in a pool of my own blood and I grew slightly faint.

I sat up quickly and I saw Harry sitting next to me and Riddle was gone.

"What happened?" I asked.

Harry pointed to a book - which I realized was Riddle's diary - that had a large tooth sticking through it. The book appeared to be leaking blood out of it, which seemed to be very odd.

"Riddle's gone," Harry smiled. "When I stabbed the book, he just vanished."

Then Ginny sat up quickly, looking around the room in panic.

"Harry - Rose - it was m-me!" she said quickly. "It w-was me all a-along! B-but I didn't m-mean t-to! I-I didn't know w-what I w-was d-doing - I swear!"

"It's okay Ginny," Harry said. "We already know."

I grabbed Riddle's diary and then we started to walk ahead, but I still felt weak from the amount of blood that I had lost.

I managed to stumble through the chamber until we met up with Ron again. Luckily he had managed to make a hole through the rocks that we could get through.

"GINNY!" Ron said happily as he pulled her through the hole in the pile of rocks. "Are you okay? What happened? Oh my gosh, Rose! Are you okay?"

I looked down to see what he was talking about. My entire body, especially my left arm, was completely covered in dry blood. I felt the left side of my face and could tell that blood was on it too.

"We'll explain everything later," Harry said.

Something - or someone - was missing.

"Where's Lockhart?" I asked Ron.

"Oh, he's right here. The Memory Charm that he tried to put on us backfired…he's lost it."

Lockhart was sitting in the corner rocking back and forth and humming cheerfully.

"Why hello there!" he smiled.

"Um…hi…" Harry said.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Ron asked.

Fawkes swooped down in front of us and we looked at each other.

"There is no way that bird can hold us all," Ron said.

"Fawkes isn't your average bird," Harry smiled.

We all took hold of Fawkes and the phoenix took us back up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom once more. When we landed, the sink closed up and the chamber closed itself for what I hoped to be the last time.


	21. Chapter 21

After we left the bathroom, we went straight to Professor McGonagall's office. When we opened the door, it was completely silent as we saw Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in the room with Professor McGonagall. All three of them looked shocked to see us.

"Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley screamed.

She ran over to her daughter, Mr. Weasley close behind, and flung herself onto Ginny. They all started to cry and Harry and I just stood there kind of awkwardly watching this family reunion. I looked over to the other side of the room and saw Dumbledore standing silently in the corner. He had a smile on his face when he saw the two of us.

I couldn't be happier to see him. I smiled back at him and couldn't help but notice the twinkling in Dumbldore's eyes.

"Oh dear…" Mrs. Weasley said, looking directly at me. "Rose, are you okay?"

"I'm fine…" I said. "It's just a little blood…"

"A little?" Mrs. Weasley said in a concerned tone. "Dear, you're covered in it!"

"Don't worry about it…" I said, feeling a little embarrassed.

There was silence for a moment and then Mr. and Mrs. Weasley pulled us both into a hug.

"How did you do it?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"I believe that is something that we all want to know…" McGonagall murmured.

It took us a while, but we managed to explain the whole thing. We took turns telling our part and we explained to everyone that Ginny didn't know what she was doing and that she was being controlled by Voldemort the entire time. After lecturing her daughter about the importance of not talking to objects that don't have a brain, Mrs. Weasley escorted Ginny and Mr. Weasley out of the room and to the hospital wing.

"I think that I will leave you four to talk," McGongall said as she exited the room.

Dumbledore sat down behind the desk and smiled at all three of us. He told us everything that had happened while we were down in the Chamber of Secrets and that none of us would get in any real trouble over this - in fact, we would all be getting awards.

"Gilderoy, you seem to be very quiet, are you okay?" Dumbledore asked him.

"Oh…about that," I said slowly. "He doesn't really know who he is."

"Is that so?" Dumbledore asked seeming almost amused at the idea.

"My wand backfired when he tried to erase our memories…" Ron said looking down at his broken wand.

"I see," Dumbledore said. "Mr. Weasley, would you mind escorting Professor Lockhart to the hospital? I would like to have a few words with these two."

"Sure…" Ron said, looking confused.

Once Ron left the room, Dumbledore looked back to us and smiled.

"You two must have shown loyalty to me down in the Chamber, otherwise Fawkes wouldn't have come…" Dumbledore said. "So, you two have finally met Tom Riddle."

"Yeah…he was quite the character…" I said slowly.

"Professor…" Harry said. "Why is it that we can speak Parseltongue?"

Dumbledore was silent for a moment and then looked back to us, his eyes were twinkling.

"The night that your parents died and Voldemort was trying to kill you, I believe that some of his powers transferred over to the two of you."

"So…part of Voldemort is inside of us?" Harry asked.

"If I am not mistaken, yes."

"So, I guess that the Sorting Hat was right…maybe we should have been sorted into Slytherin…"

"Why is that?"

"The only reason that the Sorting Hat put us in Gryffindor was because we asked it not to put us in Slytherin…"

"Harry, I want you to take a good look at that sword."

He picked up the sword and read on the side of it.

"That's Godric Gryffindor's sword…" I said. "Why did it come out of the hat?"

"The sword of Gryffindor only shows itself to a true Gryffindor," he smiled.

Suddenly the door flew open and Lucius Malfoy stood at the door looking furious. At his feet was a small, familiar looking creature.

"Dobby?" I whispered.

Dobby looked frightened when he saw us. He thought that he was going to get in trouble for just being in our presence.

"So you've decided to return even though you didn't have permission?" Mr. Malfoy snarled. "How charming of you!"

"Well, you see Lucius, many of the governors wrote to me saying that you had threatened them to make sure that I left," Dumbledore smiled. "They seemed to feel I am fit for the job.

They kept talking but all I could see was Dobby pointing from the diary that I was holding to Mr. Malfoy.

"It was you," I said.

"What are you talking about?" Mr. Malfoy snarled.

"You put this book into Ginny's cauldron after you and Mr. Weasley had a fight!" I said.

"Prove it!" he snarled. "Come Dobby!"

He strolled out of the office, kicking Dobby in the process.

"Let me see that," Harry said to me.

I handed him the book and he ran out of the door with it.

"What is he doing?" I asked Dumbledore.

"I haven't the slightest clue…" he smiled at me. "You really should get yourself to the hospital, you look rather frightening with all of that blood."

I smiled back at him and went out into the hallway to see Dobby and Harry standing side by side.

"What did I miss?" I asked.

"Dobby is a free elf!" Dobby cheered.

I smiled as I saw Harry's sock sitting inside of the diary that apparently been thrown at Dobby by Mr. Malfoy. He had tricked him.

I walked up into the hospital wing without Harry. I figured that I should probably get some kind of blood replenishing potion from Madam Pomfrey considering how light-headed I still felt.

When I made it in there, the entire Weasley family greeted me.

"What happened to you?" George asked me.

"Did you get mauled by a werewolf or something?" Fred asked.

I laughed as I looked down at my bloody clothes.

"No, I was just bitten by a gigantic snake, that's all," I said.

"I just hate it when that happens, don't you Fred?" George said as he elbowed his brother.

"It just ruins my whole day!"

Once I had cleaned myself up and got some more blood going in my system, I made my way down to the Great Hall for the feast.

When I got there, I saw that Hermione was with us. When I looked around the room, I saw many more people that had been returned to their original state. Before I walked beyond the doors though, I was stopped when someone started talking to me.

"I see that you're back to normal."

I turned around and saw Snape standing just outside of the door. I smiled at him as he walked beside me.

"I heard that you were covered in your own blood not that long ago…" Snape said sounding slightly concerned.

"Yeah, it's a shame that you couldn't see me like that," I said sarcastically. "I was quite the sight."

There was a moment of silence as we stared into the Great Hall, watching all of the students talking happily to each other.

"Lockhart's lost his memory, in case you didn't know," I said.

"I heard about that…" Snape said slowly. "I wasn't sure whether or not it was true though."

"It is," I said. "I'm sure that you're upset that you've lost your best friend."

I looked over at him and saw him rolling his eyes, a hint of a smile across his lips.

"Maybe we'll get a teacher next year that isn't a complete psychopath," I said.

"We can only dream," Snape said as he walked into the Great Hall.

I walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat down next to Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Neville. They were all getting Hermione caught up with what had happened since she had been petrified. Out of everything that we told her, the one thing that freaked her out the most was the fact that exams had been canceled.

-

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and me all managed to get ourselves into one compartment on the trip back to Kings Cross Station.

On the way there, I stepped out to buy some stuff from the sweets trolley to store up for the rest of the summer, in case the Dursleys decided to starve us again. When I was walking back up with two whole bags of sweets, I bumped into someone unexpected.

Cedric Diggory was standing outside a compartment with another boy, who looked about his age. When they saw me the other boy whispered something to Cedric, who looked down at the floor sheepishly. The boy then walked into the compartment, leaving Cedric alone. When he looked up at me, his face went a little red, but he smiled at me.

"Hi."

"Hey." He smiled.

"I got your rose on Valentine's day," I said, "It was very sweet of you. Sorry I couldn't thank you sooner."

"I'm glad you liked it," he smiled, "And I can understand that you were busy. You had to save a first year from a giant snake in a secret chamber."

"Yeah - the usual."

"Your relatives will be proud of everything that you did this year, won't they?" he asked with a smile.

"Yeah, right!" I snickered. "After all of the times Harry and I could have been killed - they'll be furious. They don't like us very much."

"I can't imagine how someone could possibily not like you."

I felt my face heat up, "Um yeah well- oh, we're nearly here. We should get to our compartments!"

He chuckled, and nodded, _"I'll see you next year?"_

 _"Yes you will."_

-

When we got off the platform, I saw the Dursley's car sitting a little ways away from the station and sighed.

"You'll have to come by for the summer," Ron said to Harry and me.

"I wish we could just stay at your house…" Harry said.

"If only." I said, glancing at my uncle, who looked as if he'd rather be anywhere in the world but here.

I couldn't wait to come back next year.


End file.
